


Fallen Angels

by GatesKeeper



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Adoptive Parent Castiel (Supernatural), Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Case Fic, M/M, Martial Arts Instructor Castiel, Minor Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Special Agent Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:48:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 22,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22610509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GatesKeeper/pseuds/GatesKeeper
Summary: Dean Winchester knew he was going to work in the KBI's homicide division like his father since he was four years old. That's when the infamous Angel Killer first kidnapped and then murdered his mother just because her soulmark contained angel wings.Now, two decades after he stopped killing, the psychopath is back. And his latest kidnapping victim--a man named Castiel Novak--has a soulmark that matches Dean's.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, John Winchester/Mary Winchester
Comments: 236
Kudos: 584





	1. Chapter 1

Dean strolls into the precinct carrying a tray of coffee. “You’re late, Brother,” Benny drawls, not glancing up from his paperwork.

“That’s what the bribe is for,” Dean tells his new partner, setting down a large coffee, shot of expresso, two sugars. They’d been working together for about a month. But even though Benny is obviously more reserved than Dean, several stakeouts together have opened him up enough to talk a bit about his military background and the restaurant his wife, Andrea, owns—so Dean figures it won’t be long before they’re friends.

“Who else’s good graces are you trying to get into?” Benny asks, raising his eyebrows in the direction of the other three cups.

Dean grins, lifting one. “Caramel macchiato with chocolate sprinkles.”

Benny rolls his eyes. “Charlie. It’s no wonder that girl’s so hyper.”

“Red eye,” Dean says, indicating another.

“Jo.”

“Yup. And the last is for me.”

“Well, you better go deliver them before they get cold. ‘S a quiet morning so far.”

Unfortunately, Dean only gets about three steps away before his Uncle Bobby—or Director Singer as he is supposed to call him at work—halts him in his tracks. “Winchester, Lafitte, need you on a scene. 22 Orchard Drive out in Clinton.”

He’d said all of this casually, but something in the older man’s stance quickly dispels the good mood Dean had been in just a few moments before. “Sir, is it…?”

“Still waiting on preliminaries, but…,” Bobby sighs. “It looks like the Angel Killer might have another victim.” He presses a file into Dean’s limply hanging hand. “Now go on. Find something on this bastard,” he says roughly, but not unkindly, before turning back to his office.

Dean leaves the coffees on Benny’s desk and, without a word to each other, they grab their jackets and head out the door, already feeling the pressure of running against the clock.

/////

“No body yet, right?” Dean asks from the driver’s seat, having given Benny the file to peruse.

“No. So as long as he sticks to pattern, we still got three days to rescue this guy.”

Dean’s fingers drum the steering wheel impatiently. “OK, come on, read me in.”

“Kidnapped man’s name is Castiel Novak.”

Benny catches Dean’s sharp intake of breath. “What? You know him or something?”

“No,” Dean says, honestly. “It’s just…Castiel. It’s the name of an angel.”

“Well, that fits,” his partner grumbles. “He’s a Caucasian male. 30. Moved here from Chicago about a year ago and--” Benny stops to whistle. “Looks like he opened up his own martial arts teaching center. He’s trained in five different kinds of self-defense. How do you figure the Angel Killer got to him? This guy didn’t go anywhere without a fight.”

“Maybe got close to him first? Someone new in town is probably looking for friends.”

Benny snorts, flipping the page. “He’s a bad judge of character if that’s the case.”

Dean’s jaw tightens slightly with the need to defend the stranger—but Benny isn’t Jo—he doesn’t know the kind of trigger-hair temper he has when it comes to anything involving this particular psychopath. And, frankly, he doesn’t deserve to find out.

“You make a decent point,” he answers instead. “We say the Angel Killer doesn’t really have a type—besides the soulmarks.” Psycho would go after anyone whose soul tattoo contained angel symbolism—whether it was a halo, wings, or, in one case, a harp. “But so far he’s targeted 110-pound sorority girls, housewives, and homeless people who he could get an upper hand on,” he points out. “For someone like this, he might have had to change his MO.”

Their eyes meet and he knows that they’re thinking the same thing, _Maybe, he made a mistake._

/////

The Angel Killer showed up for the first time in 19 years about six months ago. Dean and Jo were called in too late—after Carolyn Simmons was already dead and hanging from the bridge over Milkwood Creek. With her blonde hair and long nightgown, she looked incredibly like the crime scene photos of Mary Winchester’s body, found pinned to a basketball hoop in a local park.

And just like Mary, Carolyn’s [soulmark](https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/375839531381153116/)—in this case, a feather intertwined with an infinity symbol on the pulse point of her wrist—had been sliced from her body. In replacement, the murderer left his signature—a tattoo of a falling star.

Dean’s blood ran cold and he immediately sought out a private place to take out his phone.

Of course, when he called John, his father had quickly dismissed the recent body as the work of a copycat—in a tone that clearly said Dean was stupid for thinking otherwise. “The Angel Killer got a lot of media attention. It was only a matter of time before some sick fuck decided to take up the mantle.”

Dean knew that it was possible. The original profile suggested the Angel Killer was in his 40s, so, yeah, it did seem unlikely he’d have the strength to haul bodies onto bridges and dangle them from ceilings in what would now be his 60s. And where he used to set fires to the homes of the victims during the original kidnappings to destroy evidence, that no longer seemed to be part of his plans. But the uncertainty in Dean’s gut lingered. Because he knows profiles can be wrong—and so can John Winchester.

/////

As it stands, Dean’s glad that most people believe that it’s a copycat. Two decades ago, the Angel Killer wandered all over the Midwest, making it the FBI’s jurisdiction. But since Carolyn Simmons and later, Roger Bowen, were both killed in-state, the Feds are willing to let the Kansas Bureau work the case for now. Though if he had to bet, part of their reluctance to take over comes from not wanting to re-live one of their greatest investigative failures before the press.

Even from the Impala, he can see the falling star drawn onto Castiel Novak’s front door. The dripping red paint looks like blood—but thankfully, it hasn’t been at any of the crime scenes so far.

He and Benny flash their badges to the officer outside before ducking under the police tape spread across Castiel’s front yard. There are a few neighbors lingering around that he’ll talk to later, but, first, he wants to see the scene.

The living room is a wreck—the couch and coffee table pushed apart by the two struggling bodies who came between them. The standing lamp, clearly used to swing at somebody, has left a gouge in one of the walls.

“Well, I think we can definitely say he didn’t go somewhere without a fight,” Dean murmurs, referencing their conversation from earlier. He shakes his head. It still doesn’t add up.

Dean walks back out the front door and then reenters the living room—ignoring Benny’s amused gaze. He has his reasons.

The first thing he notices this time are the three pairs of shoes lined up on a mat by the entrance. He opens the closet—where a trench coat still wears a few drops of last night’s rain. This Castiel is neat.

With this new perspective, he can imagine how the living room is supposed to look. Castiel was obviously of the belief that books counted as decorations because the space would be spartan without them. Most of his selection is a little too academic for Dean’s tastes, but he spots a few brightly colored Vonnegut classics and both hardback and paperback copies of Harry Potter displayed just as proudly. Where Dean has a TV in his own living room, Castiel just has an electric fireplace.

He walks through to the kitchen, where a kettle waits on one of the burners. Dean’s foot slips slightly on a patch of mud. When he gets his balance back, he finds himself blinking at a kitten-themed wall calendar that’s still on last month. _Well, isn’t that adorable._

“Castiel didn’t invite the killer in. He was already here, waiting for him,” Dean tells Benny once he rejoins the other agent.

“How ya figure?” Benny asks, seemingly genuinely curious.

“Mud in the kitchen,” he says, jerking his thumb in that direction. “Castiel took his shoes off when he came home. Most people who do that ask their guests to do the same, but someone was wearing boots. Fight didn’t start there though. It started in the living room. So, what did he want in the kitchen?”

“Hey, Andy,” Dean gestures to one of the techs. “We got a sample of that, right?” He asks, indicating where tea has seeped out of a broken artisan mug across the cream carpet near the coffee table. He nods an affirmative.

“Think he mighta been drugged?”

“Seems like a possibility, right?”

Benny hums in response.

“You got anything?” Dean wonders out-loud, eyes obviously going to the laptop that his partner has tucked under his arm.

“Found it upstairs,” he admits, propping it against the back of the couch and opening it up. The lock screen shows three people, arms around each other.

Dean blinks. The guy on the left is…well, _wow_ would be putting it mildly. Dark, windswept hair and sapphire blue eyes that are smiling even though his mouth isn’t. Dean’s attention skims over the shorter, chestnut-haired man and drifts to the redhead on the right. He wouldn’t mind meeting her at a bar either.

“This guy’s the vic,” Benny says, pointing to the first man. “So far, we got no next of kin to talk to. Figure if we can track these two down, we might learn something.”

“Able to access any of his files?”

“Computer needs either a password or a soulmark scan. Figure that’s a job for Charlie.”

Dean knows he’s right, but he’s caught a lucky break a time or two before on cases. “Password,” he types into the bar. Not unsurprisingly, the screen shakes to tell him it was a wrong answer.

Dean looks at the Harry Potter books again. “Alohomora,” he guesses a second time, while Benny rolls his eyes at his persistence.

Dean pulls his sleeves out of the way of his hands, tapping his fingers along the keys as he tries to come up with a third idea—when all of a sudden, the scanner next to the touchpad heats up, and he sees a faint red glow under the skin of his wrist.

The computer unlocks.

“What did you type?” Benny asks, impressed, as he spins the laptop to face him again.

“I…didn’t,” Dean admits.

Glancing over Benny’s shoulder at the screen, he can see it now reads. “Soulmark confirmed. Welcome back, Castiel Novak.”


	2. Chapter 2

Dean sits on the closed toilet lid staring down at his wrist. He’s not hiding or anything. And even if he was, it’s not like going to the bathroom would do him any good considering the thing that’s currently freaking him out is standing out dark against his wrist.

The [tattoo](https://www.fromoldbooks.org/Barrett-Magus-BookII/pages/105a-symbols-27-saturday-sigil-angel-cassiel/) is about an inch long—a series of lines and swirls that wouldn’t hold meaning to most people—and, in a dim part of his brain, he’s surprised that the killer knew it relates to angels at all.

_“What is it, Mommy?” he’d asked with a four-year-old’s lisp as she traced his soulmark with her fingers._

_“It’s like a secret code. Somewhere out there, someone has the exact same symbol as you—and that means that they’re destined to be your very best friend—just like your Daddy is mine,” she said with a smile that seemed both excited and a little sad at the prospect._

_“I like yours better,” he’d insisted with a huff that made her smile brighter. “Mine just looks like a bunch of scribbles.”_

_“Actually,” she’d said, leaning down to kiss his palm. “It’s a sigil—a fancy way of writing a name. In this case, it’s the name of an angel.”_

Dean snorts to himself. He thought it was a coincidence before—when Benny mentioned Castiel’s name. Guess he knows better now; his parents probably named him after his soulmark as a baby. He wonders if he tends to have good luck on Thursdays too.

Soulmate. He has a _soulmate._ Who, apparently, is a kitten-loving badass. And whose bathroom smells vaguely of oranges.

That would probably be enough new information for one day. But no, his _soulmate_ happens to have been kidnapped by the same monster who drove a knife through his mother’s stomach and then left her pulseless and glassy-eyed for the world to see—

 _OK, maybe the bathroom was a good idea_ , he thinks, as he turns around, opens the toilet lid, and waits to see if he’s about to throw up.

/////

“How ya doing, Brother?” Benny asks, when he emerges ten minutes later.

“Peachy.”

Benny raises an eyebrow in waiting.

“Look, can we not make a big deal of this?” Dean asks, stepping closer to the other man so that he can whisper. “There’s already some people who want me—us—off this case just because they know I got stakes in it. If they find out about another personal connection…” His jaw clicks shut around the words.

“And what is it you want me to do here exactly?” Benny’s low voice doesn’t sound pleased, but he’s talking down into his notepad, acting like he’s taking notes, so Dean figures he’s at least willing to hear him out.

“Look, as far as we know, the computer scanner is messed up. Maybe we just have really similar soulmarks, not identical ones.” Benny covers his sound of disbelief with a slight cough. “All I’m asking is that you don’t report any unsubstantiated rumors.”

“Uh huh. And what happens when we get this guy’s medical records? If they contain his soulmark, standard procedure is to run that through the system for any matches.”

And, of course, one of the pre-requisites for joining the agency is that your fingerprints and soulmark get uploaded into the database.

Dean wonders what the chances are that someone who moved here a year ago doesn’t already have a doctor in the city. Someone who teaches Krav Maga for a living? Probably pretty slim. “Earliest we’ll probably get those is this afternoon,” he says, instead. _Just give me some time to figure things out, Man._

“Well,” Benny tugs his fisherman’s cap further up his forehead. “Suppose I wouldn’t want to upset the investigation for something unconfirmed.” Dean claps his shoulder in gratitude.

Next time he brings Benny coffee, he’ll throw in a slice of pie.

/////

Dean feels his phone buzz in his pocket. A click glance down shows that it’s Sam. Again.

He denies the call, trying to give full attention to Miriam’s wandering account of last night. She admits there was a disturbance around midnight, but she didn’t think much of it and went right back to sleep. “Of course, I felt just awful in the morning,” she insists, touching him on the arm.

He pastes on a fake smile. “How about earlier yesterday? Did you notice when Cas—Castiel came home?” He corrects himself quickly, carefully avoiding Benny’s gaze.

“Hmmm, well…” She stops abruptly, as she catches sight of a pretty brown-haired woman in her 20s. “Hannah! Hannah!” she calls. “My granddaughter,” she offers in explanation. “Came over for dinner last night. Maybe she’ll remember something.”

She pitches her voice lower, conspiratorially. “She thinks I don’t notice the way she watches Castiel out the window when he’s gardening, but an old woman recognizes pining when she sees it.”

“Right…” Dean says, as his cellphone vibrates again.

As Miriam predicted, Hannah knows more about Castiel’s habits. “I think I saw him around 8? That’s when he usually gets back on weekdays. Except Tuesday—he’s got that off,” she explains.

“You two friends?” Benny wonders out loud.

“We just talk in passing. He’s rather…reserved.”

“You always did go for the strong and silent type, dear.”

“Grandma, _please,_ ” Hannah begs.

“So, you know anybody else in his life? Relatives, friends?”

“Uh, his sister visits sometimes with his nephew.”

“Names?”

“Anna and, I think, Sam.”

 _Well, that is going to be confusing,_ Dean notes, and then immediately wonders what the hell he’s thinking. He doesn’t even know this guy—and he certainly shouldn’t be wondering how they are going to differentiate the Sams in their lives when, for all he knows, Cas is an ass or against the whole concept of soulmates. Or, you know, he could be dead.

“Enemies?”

Miriam speaks up this time. “He didn’t like Lilith from the homeowners’ association because she told him he couldn’t keep bees, but that can’t possibly have anything to do with this, right?”

They write the name down anyway before going on to the next neighbor. It’s mostly the same spiel over and over again. Cas is polite but keeps to himself. A couple of people mention a woman who stops by his place occasionally. Short, with wavy dark hair and an unusual voice, they seem to know nothing else about her—except they don’t like her and think that Castiel could do better. Not that anyone can confirm they’re dating.

By the end of all the interviews, Dean feels exhausted and it’s only 11 in the morning.


	3. Chapter 3

“Hello! Excuse me!” a woman’s voice shouts from the crowd of thinning onlookers and Dean thinks that this is the closest those words have ever sounded to curses. “That’s my brother’s house, so someone is going to let me through and tell me what the _fuck_ is going on!” _That’s more like it,_ Dean decides, his soulmark tingling with a rare case of nerves.

He jogs back to the property line. “Are you Anna?” he asks, when he spots the redhead from Cas’s lock screen, but he is already reaching to pull up the caution tape for her.

“Where’s Castiel?”

Dean winces. No way to sugarcoat this. “He’s missing. But let’s find a private place to talk, OK?”

He can’t lead her into the house—not while the techs are still going over everything with a fine-tooth comb, so he steers her around the side of the house and onto the back porch instead.

Benny catches him on the way. “Do you want me in on this or…?” he asks with raised eyebrows.

Dean hesitates, but only for a moment.

“Think you can go down to his work and interview the staff?” he asks his partner. Benny nods and even though he knows he’ll ask the right questions and that they’ll probably cover more ground by splitting up anyway, there’s a part of him that worries that the other agent will miss whatever _thing_ they need to crack this case open. He shoves the thought down as hard as he can, but it just bobs back up again.

By the time he turns his attention back to the redhead, she has her phone out and is in the middle of a video conference with the other man from the photo. “Hi,” he says, inserting himself awkwardly into the rather loud conversation. “I’m Special Agent Dean Winchester. I’m running point on this case. Can I start by getting your full names?”

Two sets of brown eyes glare at him, but he just waits patiently.

“Anna Milton.”

“Gabriel Shurley.”

“And you are…?” he asks Gabriel, trying not to be distracted by the ‘You’re in my inappropriate thoughts’ sleep shirt the guy is wearing.

“I’m his brother—can’t you tell by the uncanny resemblance?”

“Uh…”

“Gabriel!” Anna hisses, the effect somewhat ruined by how she’s blinking back tears. “Just be serious for once in our goddamn lives.”

“This _is_ me being serious. Turn on the news. They’re saying the Angel Killer took Cassie—and some underwear-model-slash-cop who can’t even figure out who _we_ are isn’t going to be the one to find him. I’m calling Chuck—he can apply some pressure to get the Feds on this.”

“Woah, woah, woah!” Dean says, hands up, wondering just how this conversation got so out of control so quickly.

Anna looks at him, considering, and he doesn’t think he likes the decision that settles over her shoulders.

Dean quickly weighs his options. He’s used to dealing with grieving, pissed-off families, where hiding behind stoic professionalism is usually the way to go. That’s clearly not the case here. And while he _does_ have one argument in his favor up his sleeve—literally—it wouldn’t be right to bring that up here with people who actually know and love Cas. So, instead, he blurts out, “The Angel Killer murdered my mom!”

Instantly, he faces the backyard, rather than the two people who have turned to him in surprise. For someone who spends months or even years getting to know someone before revealing this about himself, saying it so blatantly makes his stomach churn. But…he needs them to understand. “No one knows this case better than me. And where a Fed is going to want to solve this case so they can have a nice commendation on their resume, they’ll never have the drive I do. To get this guy. To find your brother. So just—let me do my job.”

He doesn’t give them a chance to argue before pulling out Cas’s file again. “Now, according to our records, Cas has no siblings, so…care to explain?”

“We’re not technically related,” Anna offers, frowning. “But we found each other at the orphanage and…we made our own family. Every once in a while, we’d get sent to separate foster homes. None of them really stuck—well, Gabriel eventually got adopted by Charles Shurley when he needed to boost his numbers for re-election…Senate,” she mentions, almost as an afterthought. “But we always knew, when it came down to it, that the three of us were all we had.”

“Family don’t end with blood,” Dean agrees, automatically, but he doesn’t mean to make this about himself again. “It’s good that you guys are all close. You probably know a lot more about his habits than most relatives I talk to.”

He hopes he’s not imagining the way their walls seem to be lowering slightly. “So…I’m going to ask you a bunch of questions. Some, you might think are irrelevant. A lot of them will turn out to _be_ irrelevant, but some won’t, and I need you to bear with me, OK?” Anna, at least, gives him a tentative nod and Gabriel doesn’t argue, which is good enough for him.

He learns that Cas learned to fight after a bigger kid at the orphanage, Raphael, took to making him his personal punching bag—but that he also has a degree in Philosophy from the University of Chicago. About a year ago, he moved to Kansas to help out Anna and Samandriel after her “embarrassing excuse” for an ex-husband left. He takes the four-year-old to daycare in the mornings, which is why Anna knew something was wrong when he didn’t show up. In addition, he calls Gabriel every Sunday only for his brother to harass him about why he didn’t go out on Saturday.

“So, he’s not particularly social or big on the dating scene?” Dean asks because he needs to, but that doesn’t mean he’s not also curious.

“Cassie likes group activities where he can be alone. Like those painting and wine classes, where you can pretend that you’re putting yourself out there because there are a bunch of people around you, but don’t involve actually talking to anyone.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“To be honest?” Gabriel huffs. “I think he wants the company, but he just doesn’t find that many people interesting. He doesn’t get the point of gossip or small talk. As a teenager, someone would bring up the weather, and he would tell them about the different kinds of clouds there are or what some shit-old religion believed about how to summon rain—only to realize that the person just wanted him to say, ‘Yeah, it sucks outside’.”

Dean raps his pen against his notepad thoughtfully. “Given that, how likely would he be to talk to someone about his soulmark? It’s a pretty obscure angel reference.”

Anna and Gabriel exchange a look. “He wouldn’t bring it up on his own,” Anna thinks out loud. “And he tends to wear long sleeves, so people wouldn’t see it very often. But if someone asks about his name, he’ll sometimes mention it.” Well, that’s not going to help him narrow down suspects.

“OK, this guy knew Cas well enough to be wary of him, but I doubt he is the kind of person who could wait too long before acting once he finds someone who meets his criteria. So I need you to tell me about any people you know of who Cas has met within the last couple of months. Did he go on any blind dates? Suddenly start eating at a new restaurant? Did he go to the mechanic, the bank, a book club where he might have interacted with someone different? Obviously, that’s a big question, but anything you give us could be helpful.”

“Cassie would never agree to go on a date with someone he doesn’t know,” Gabriel’s very tone implies that’s ridiculous. “And as far as I'm aware, he’s still riding the same dry spell he’s been on for the last couple of years. He’s made a few friends out of the people he trains—Meg and Mick—but they met six months ago or more. But, recently, he’s started volunteering with an orphanage in Topeka. He’s really taken to a kid there—Jack. He was going through the steps to foster him but I think his mind’s already on adoption.”

Dean barely catches the startled whistle before it leaves his lips. _A kid._

A few follow-up questions reveal that Cas had already hired a lawyer for the adoption process—from Douchbags R Us—aka Crowley & Associates—aka where Sammy works. (His brother, of course, is the only non-douchebag there). Dean thinks of the half a dozen rejected calls on his phone and cringes. _Well, shit._


	4. Chapter 4

“Are you okay?!?” Charlie screams when she sees him, jumping to her feet. Behind her, her office chair spins around in confusion while several of her Funko Pops bob their heads. Dean doesn’t so much hug her back as make a valiant attempt to stop her from falling when she tackles him with open arms.

“Sorry for dodging your last couple of calls. I thought you were Sam,” he tries to explain, then winces. Letting Charlie know he’s avoiding his brother isn’t likely to stop the screeching.

“No, no, not about that. Are you okay about Castiel?”

His blood shivers in his veins. “What do you know about that? _How_ do you know about that?”

“You’re in a delicate emotional state right now, which is why I’m going to excuse that question. I know _all,_ handmaiden.”

She pauses, biting her lower lip. “Let me correct that. I actually know nothing—less than Jon Snow nothing. Including what his soulmark looks like or what your soulmark looks like. Or why the soulmark scans sent with his medical records came digitally corrupted. And considering I have so much other information to process for this case, I think it makes sense to focus on what will get us closer to the Angel Killer rather than spending time trying to recover this probably-inconsequential file that, again, I know nothing about.”

Dean hugs her for real this time. He thinks his taste in friends might be even better than his taste in cars—and that’s saying something. “You’re really representing all four Hogwarts houses with this move, you realize that?” he says, into her Weasley-red hair.

“Phssh, Bitch. You know I’m a Ravenclaw.”

/////

“I do actually have some news for you,” she says, after insisting Dean sit down and eat the burger he’d stopped by for on the way back to the office.

He swallows, hastily, “Well…? Fill me in.”

“Benny got a list of recent clients from Castiel’s training center. But the staff _also_ mentioned a woman who had been in several times during Castiel’s lunch break. Never signs up, just hovers around…” Dean frowns but keeps his thoughts to himself. Charlie would probably call him sexist for believing the Angel Killer is a dude, but it’s what his gut instincts are telling him. “Anyway, I was able to pull up security footage from one of her visits. Her name is April Kelly—and as it so happens, she moved from Chicago at the same time Castiel did.”

“I mean…that could be a coincidence.”

“It could, but I found payments she made to Castiel’s old martial arts studio from about four years ago. Three years ago, Castiel moved to a different apartment on the west side of town—and incidentally, so did she. Two years ago, he started going to a particular mom-and-pop grocery store rather than using one of the big chains and suddenly, girlie _also_ took an interest in supporting local businesses. You get where I’m going with this?”

“Cas has a stalker.”

“Bingo.”

“Text me her current address!” he shouts over his shoulder, already halfway out the door.

/////

Along the way to April’s one-bedroom loft, Dean has Benny send her picture to Gabriel, asking if he knows anything about her.

Almost immediately, they get a call back and put it on speakerphone.

“That bitch is there now?”

“What do you know about her?”

“That she apparently doesn’t understand the meaning of the words hit-it-and-quit-it.”

“I thought you said Cas didn’t do one-night stands.”

“He doesn’t,” Gabriel says. “She’s part of the reason why. 26 years old, the kid still hadn’t popped his cherry yet, so I, as any good brother should, suggested he find a partner and at least try out the horizontal tango. Of course, it would just be Cassie’s luck to pick the craziest chick at the bar. Well…I suppose she picked him.”

“Did he know…that she was following him?”

“Back in Chicago, yeah, but he thought she was harmless—or at the very least, that he could take care of himself. He didn’t mention seeing her _recently._ ”

Dean considers probing further, asking what Cas’s other exes thought about that situation. You know, in the name of research. But it doesn’t really relate to the case. And it's unfair to Cas how much he already knows about him when he doesn’t even realize Dean _exists_ yet. When he finds out, he’s probably going to want to tell his story in his own time. “OK, thanks, Gabriel,” he says instead, indicating to Benny he should hang up.

“I’ll be seeing you in person soon, Deano. Got a 2 o’clock flight. Even if I can do fuck all to help Cassie, I can at least be there for Anna.”

Dean winces a smile. “I’m sure Cas will appreciate seeing you when we get him back,” he answers, as confidently as possible.

“Fair warning—I’ll probably kill you myself if we don’t.”

Dean’s an older brother; he can respect that.

/////

Halfway through him asking, “Are you April Kelly?” and flashing his badge, her knee is in his gut and then she is sprinting across the front yard.

Benny takes off after her, pinning her arms behind her back, but makes the mistake of thinking she’s given up when she relaxes into his hold. A split second later, she’s elbowed her way out of his grip.

 _Right, martial arts training,_ Dean reminds himself, running over despite his body’s protests, only to dodge an arm headed for his throat. Still, there's two of them and only one of her—and together, they're able to tackle her to the ground.

“We’ve got a few questions for you,” he huffs, reaching for the cuffs in his back pocket.

“I usually save those for the third date,” she says, smiling over her shoulder.

/////

Dean is an Aquarius and, for the first time in his life, he wonders if he should have read his horoscope this morning, just to see if it had any warnings about the sheer number of redheads he’d be dealing with today.

“OK,” he begins, dropping her file onto the table from an unnecessary height just for the effect. “Let’s start with what we know. You’re 27, an only child, with a degree in psychology of all things, and you’ve also been following my victim.”

He produces several photos from her apartment—Cas out for a morning jog, Cas talking to the woman now identified as Meg, Cas seemingly unaware he has whipped cream on his nose from his morning coffee. “What we _don’t_ know is where you were between 11 Monday night and 1 o’clock Tuesday morning. Care to fill us in?”

“It was the middle of the night. I was asleep.”

“Can anyone confirm that?”

“No,” she says, with a coquettish smile. “I was all by my lonesome. What about you? Were you sharing body heat with someone Monday night?”

“So, you don’t have an alibi,” he says, ignoring her taunting. “And we definitely have enough cause to keep you here, so…How about you tell me who _else_ you noticed lurking around Cas’s place, huh? Convince me to put in a good word for you with the DA’s office.”

“You don’t think I kidnapped him?” she asks with a raised eyebrow.

“No.” If Jo were here, she’d think he was being soft just because she was hot. Which is unfair, because so is Jo—in a sisterly kind of way—and he still beats her ass whenever they spar. April just doesn’t make sense for this.

For one thing, her obsession is with Cas—not with angel soulmarks (hers is a [stingray](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/163959242659959180/?lp=true) and Dean can only imagine what her other half must be like). And even if she _had_ planned Cas’s kidnapping hoping it would get lumped in with the other Angel Killer cases, she still would have had to lug a drugged man out to a car without anyone noticing. So, he waits.

She sighs, twisting her long hair around her wrist before draping it over one shoulder. “There was a blond guy parked outside his house for the last couple of weeks. Didn’t approach the house or Castiel as far as I saw. Just…watched.”

“You two should start a fan club.” He gestures to the images spread out on his table. “Where’s his picture?”

“Didn’t take one. He wasn’t nearly as pretty to look at.”

"Well, what was he _driving_?"

Just then, his cell phone vibrates. Kevin. Meaning lab results.

He gathers his documents back together. “I’m setting you up with a sketch artist. Afterward, we’ll get you a pen and paper. You write down everything about this guy's car—everyone you remember Cas interacting with in the last month. I’ll be back with more questions later.”

“You could at least pretend to go to the bathroom first before bailing!” she calls after him. He just flips the bird in response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be really interested in hearing who you guys think the bad guy is as the story develops.
> 
> Just a warning. I will be going on vacation soon, so the soonest I'm promising an update is two weekends from now (March 14). I might get something done on the plane and post earlier, but I'd rather not commit to something I can't deliver on. 
> 
> The same will be true of my other Works-in-Progress: [Right Place, Wrong Time](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22117462/chapters/52789093) and [Truth Be Told](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21621739/chapters/51558172), in case you follow those stories.


	5. Chapter 5

“Dean?” Sam’s voice calls from the other side of the lobby. Dean makes a face of apology to the secretary he had been talking to in order to face his brother. This is why he never buys lottery tickets—he has the worst luck of anyone who isn’t dead or ugly. “What are you doing here? You coulda just called me back.”

“I didn’t actually stop by for you, Sammy. I need to speak to that douche friend of yours. What’s his name? Brandon? Grady?”

“Brady. But you know that.”

He does.

“You really can’t keep holding that one night against him, Dean. We were stupid college kids at a party. It’s not like you haven’t done worse.”

But Sam isn’t him. That’s the _point._ He was always meant for something better. And when that dick convinced his brother to get high and they landed up in a jail cell, it almost cost Sam his scholarship. So, really Brady should be thanking him from his stock photo model face. He only still looks like that because Dean _didn’t_ pummel him bloody, which he thinks shows great restrain on his part.

“Yeah, well,” he says, dodging the point. “Sorry that I didn’t pick up. I know we were supposed to meet for lunch but--”

“Actually, that wasn’t what I wanted to talk to you about…” Sam looks…nervous? Like he’s suddenly reverted back into a twelve-year-old inside his 6’ 4’’ body.

Dean’s about to ask if Sam needs a formal invitation to get on with it, when his brother blurts out, “I met her. My soulmate. Eileen.

“She’s a sign language interpreter with the court system and—you should have seen her today. We were on recess and this guy starts spouting some shit about her behind her back, thinking she couldn’t hear him—but she read his lips using one of the glass display cases and…” Sam pauses, perhaps realizing that his enthusiasm is not catching the way he intended it to.

His frown wrinkles his forehead. “Why do you look like that?”

“Like what?” Dean instantly fixes a smile on his face, even though he knows his eyes are too tight. “I’m really happy for you,” he promises. _Or at least I would be on any other day._

Sam obviously doesn’t buy it and God, Dean’s seen his face crumple like that before as a kid—usually, right after Dean told him that they couldn’t afford to send him on the classroom fieldtrip or that they couldn’t keep the stray dog he found—and each time, Dean swore to himself that it was the last time he’d disappoint his brother like that.

“I’m sure she’s great and you know that I’m looking forward to telling her all about how the zipper on your jeans broke in the middle of your first date and you had to call me from the bathroom to bring you an extra pair of pants. I just, uh--” Like with Anna and Gabriel, Dean can only bring himself to tell part of the truth. “I’ve been working on another Angel Killer case all day and this one’s just really hitting me, you know?”

Sam’s worry subtly shifts directions at that. But before he can say anything else, Dean smells something that reminds him of walking behind Lisa through the JC Penney’s at the mall.

A second after the cologne makes its appearance, so does Brady in a charcoal suit. Contrary to his usual look—never having a hair out of place—today, he has three, dangling low over his forehead.

“Ah, Dean,” Brady smiles as he steps closer, hands casually resting in his pockets. “I gotta say—I wasn’t expecting this.”

“I’ve got a new kidnapping vic, Castiel Novak,” Dean speaks in his general direction. “Heard you’re representing him--”

“That’s…unexpected. I’m really sorry to hear that,” Brady sympathizes with an appropriate-and-not-at-all-genuine voice of concern. “Shall we…go to my office?”

Dean says his goodbyes to Sam, congratulating him again and promising to call for real later, before entering the maze of hallways that is Crowley & Associates. He swears they pass the same ornate vase at least three times and what the fuck is even the point of a giant ass vase sitting on a pedestal without any flowers in it?

Brady’s office is actually a little less pretentious. His leather reclining chair is big enough to still scream overcompensation, but the shelf of baseball memorabilia on the left wall at least makes a try at personality.

They each take seats. Dean passes over the court order, and Brady spends the next ten minutes reading it over carefully. _Lawyers._

“So, how can I help?” Brady asks when he’s through.

“When was the last time you saw Castiel?”

“A week ago. I presume, since you’re here, you know about Jack?”

“The basics.”

Brady nods and hands over a file. Inside is a picture of what looks to be a seven- or eight-year-old with floppy brown hair and blue eyes, grinning a slightly gapped-tooth smile at the camera. “Castiel wanted to make sure all the paperwork was in order for the adoption. It seems like the boy’s biological father was recently released from prison and he’s been worried that he’ll try to take custody.”

“Name?”

“Lucifer Morningstar of all things.”

Dean snorts. His angel soulmate was apparently trying to adopt the devil’s kid. “What was he in the slammer for?”

“Armed bank robbery. He’s been inside since before Jack was born.”

“Are there any chances of him getting Jack?”

“Very slight. He may be the child’s father, but Castiel has been Jack’s father figure for months. The kid’s attached to him and Castiel would undoubtedly provide a more stable home. Most judges will see that allowing the adoption is in Jack’s best interests.”

Dean flips a page in his notebook. “Adopters have to do a lot of background checks and interviews, right? Anything new in Castiel’s life lately?”

“You mean besides moving to a new city, starting a new business, buying a new house, and potentially adopting a kid within 13 months?” Brady asks, dryly.

“You know, sarcasm is only charming on some people. And you…ain’t one of ‘em.”

“Our interactions were professional and to-the-point, as was Mr. Novak’s personality. I know little about his personal history other than he has a clean record and a very good credit score—or his social life, other than he was planning on raising Jack by himself.”

“Fine…,” Dean smiles through his teeth. “One last question. Where were you Monday evening into Tuesday morning?”

He seems to have, at last, caught Brady off guard, his practiced congeniality flickering and then eventually failing altogether like a dying light bulb. “You have _got_ to be kidding me.”

“What? You knew the vic, had access to his personal information, and I’ve recently got word of blonde hair found at the crime scene.” Which is what Kevin had been calling about earlier that afternoon. This coincided with April’s description of a blonde man hovering around Cas’s house in the days leading up to the kidnapping.

The young doctor had also confirmed the presence of drugs in Cas’s tea, which he said had only failed to render him unconscious immediately because the sedative used wasn’t meant to be heated. Trace evidence from the mud in the kitchen also revealed black bear scat. Considering the relative rarity of black bear sightings in Kansas, except for in wooded areas on the border with Missouri, it is likely that the Angel Killer lives or regularly hikes in the forests. Of course, that only limits things to a few million acres.

“If you must know, I was at a charity fundraiser for neuroblastoma research. The party started at 8 and concluded somewhere around 2 in the morning.”

“On a Monday night?” Dean repeats, disbelievingly.

“It was held by a very prestigious client of Crowley & Associates. Your brother was also in attendance if you want to confirm my presence—and, I’m sure, get a lecture on letting bygones be bygones.”

Dean grumbles an answer that doesn’t contain any actual words.

“If that will be all, I had a very late night last night, a very late workday, and frankly, I just dislike you.”

“Finally, something we can agree on.”


	6. Chapter 6

_My neck,_ Dean thinks, struggling to get his head up past the line of his shoulders to relieve some of the aching pressure sitting right at the base of the skull. He only manages to raise it about an inch.

 _My wrists,_ comes next when the movement causes the zip ties pinning his arms to the wooden chair to scrape over the already-tender skin near his soulmark. _My back…my legs…_ He names all his body parts in order of how much they hurt, reclaiming ownership of them at the same time.

He doesn’t know where he is—or if there might be someone else in the room with him. For a second, he freezes in place, listening with all his might. However, there’s no noise other than the faint whistling of the wind through trees. And, surely, his kidnapper would have acknowledged his obvious return to consciousness if he were here. So, instead, he furiously tries to wriggle his shoulders where they are duct-taped against the chair back.

 _Too far._ He’s still uncoordinated and only causes the chair to topple onto the well-worn hardwood floor with a teeth-jarring crash.

 _My head,_ he repeats its place on the list, suddenly understanding the way a metal fork in a microwave must feel.

He gives another half-hearted attempt to slip his bindings, but somehow, he is growing sleepy again—limbs heavy, eyelids heavy.

 _No,_ Dean insists, surprised at the strength of his own voice when his other thoughts had been so dim. _There’s a loose nail—there in one of the floorboards._ _If you just_ —he pictures himself scooting the chair around in a circle on the floor so that he can get his hand over to it, dig it up with his fingernails— _you can use it to break the zip ties._

But he is just so tired, and the world is already growing so dark….

/////

Dean wakes up, breathing heavily, to find himself staring upwards at the ceiling. For years, his nightmares painted Mary Winchester up there, covered in flames. Then, for a while, it was the dog attack he’d suffered when he was ten. Then, that guy who tried to trick a thirteen-year-old Sammy into his van the day Dean had shown up late to pick him up from the library.

As an adult in the KBI, he’s re-walked gruesome crime scenes in his sleep. He’s screamed all over again as the bomb exploded inside the convenience store with Jo still in the building (a day that she survived but which inspired her to switch to the bomb squad division).

Point is, he’s no stranger to bad dreams. But that didn’t mean he wanted to add another one to his rotation.

/////

“Hey, Hasselhoff. You’re here about Cas, right?”

Dean blinks as the sunlight coming through the window reflects off the blonde hair of the teenager in front of him.

“Uh, yes,” he says, still trying to shake off the vestiges of his dream. At her frown, he stands up straighter, tugging away invisible wrinkles from his suit, and forcibly shoves his personal baggage into a back closet in his mind.

He flashes her his badge—kids usually love that stuff—but she looks over it with her arms crossed, acting purposefully unimpressed.

“You’re a bit young to be Jody Mills,” Dean tacks on, referring to the head of the Wayward orphanage, who was supposed to meet him five minutes ago to answer a few questions and introduce him to Jack.

“She’s my foster mom. One of the todds had a fever, so it could be a bit.”

Dean accepts this with a nod, noting the dark circles under her eyes, only somewhat hidden by too much makeup. “You know Cas then?”

She shrugs. “Came in a lot to see Jack. He was all right. I mean, he got me a Grumpy Cat plushy for my birthday, which was kinda lame, but--” She turns away from him, abruptly. The fact that it meant a shit ton to her doesn’t need to be said out loud.

“We’re gonna find him,” Dean tells her, gently, as she brushes at her cheek with the corner of her sleeve.

“Isn’t that against some kind of law? Making promises you can’t keep?”

“Lucky for me, I always follow through on promises.” Especially this one—he _had_ to.

“You--”

“Agent?” calls a voice belonging to a tall woman with a short brown pixie cut, carrying a cardboard box filled with canned goods. “Sorry to keep you waiting. Claire, would you mind helping Kaia and Alex in the kitchen?” she asks, hefting the box over to her.

The kid—Claire—takes the excuse gladly, turning on a heel without another word to Dean.

“Sorry if she was giving you a hard time,” the woman who must be Jody murmurs. “She lost her dad to cancer a few years ago and I think Castiel reminds her of him. She’s taken it harder than I expected.”

“She wasn’t bothering me,” Dean insists. “It helps motivate me, I think—to realize that there’s more than just one life on the line here. Seems like Cas really meant a lot to people.”

“He is definitely one-of-a-kind,” Jody smiles with just her lips. “One time I gave him a crying baby to hold and he looked ten kinds of uncomfortable. But then he got into kind of a stare-off with Krissy. Said something like, ‘I don’t know what’s distressing you at the moment, but I would appreciate it if you would stop yelling while we investigate the problem’ and the darndest thing was—she did.”

“That’s--” Dean doesn’t know how to finish the sentence. Everything he’s learned about Cas simultaneously makes him seem more real and more like a story he made up in his head.

“So, I heard you had a picture for me to look at?”

“Oh, right,” Dean says, pulling Lucifer Morningstar’s picture up on his phone. Turns out it was a pretty close match to the sketch April came up with—but when officers were sent to his trailer, he wasn’t there. His probation officer said he’d been AWOL since Sunday.

Jody sighs, “Yeah, he stopped by a couple of times. The first time was to see Jack—the second and third time he just chewed us out.”

Dean raises his eyebrows, “Why?”

“Because Jack wouldn’t talk to him. He accused us of putting him up to it or something. Then, he asked if we were abusing him. Any excuse besides acknowledging that the kid barely knows him and isn’t automatically his biggest fan. We weren’t going to let him have another visit like that, so we asked him to leave the premises. Haven’t seen him since…last Friday, I think.”

“Did he have any direct interaction with Cas at all?”

“Not here. And I’m pretty sure that fancy lawyer of Castiel’s told him to avoid it if he could.”

At some point, they had started moving down the long hallway from the lobby, past a series of decorated doors. One had an Elsa poster taped to it surrounded by paper snowflakes—another a bunch of emoji stickers. They stopped in front of the one labeled ‘Jack’ in letters all vaguely resembling animals.

Dean can’t help but inhale a nervous breath. “Anything I should know before going in there?”

“Well, I’ll be there the entire time—and I won’t hesitate to kick your ass out if I think he’s becoming too distressed. But other than that, he’s a kid.” She hands him a chocolate bar. “Nougat sometimes works for opening him up.”

Bribery. He can work with that.

He nudges the door open.

The kid sits in the middle of the floor, zooming his Millennium Falcon replica through a minefield made of Legos.

Dean considers him for a minute and then, out of nowhere, flutters his throat over a roar. Jack looks up, startled and smiling, at the Chewbacca impression.

“Think I could be your copilot for a bit, Buddy?” Dean asks, gesturing to a nearby spot on the floor.

The boy nods, raising one hand, “I’m Jack.”

“Dean.”

Jody leans her head back against the wall, shoulders relaxing.

For the next couple of minutes, Dean makes appropriate noises as the Falcon gets chased by enemy ships—and a T-rex. To be honest, he was getting kind of into it when Jack made the ship land on the carpet near Dean’s foot. 

“Are you looking for my father?” he asks, quietly, tiny brows furrowed in concentration.

Dean and Jody lock gazes.

“Kinda, yeah. We know he came by to see you and we wondered if he might have said anything about the places he likes to go.”

“Uh, the park," Jack says, tapping his chin. "And the farmer’s market. And in Chicago, there’s this art place that his friend Balty runs. And Aunt Anna’s house….” Jack’s smile dims. “But he’s not there. He said the only reason he would miss a Tuesday without telling me was if he had to go to a bad place—like a hospital.”

Dean’s heart thumps slower and slower, like the tail of a dog who realizes they’re not getting the bone they were expecting. “Are you talking about Cas, Jack?”

“Yes,” the boy says, resolutely. “My father. You’re trying to find him, right?”

“We _are,_ ” Dean answers with conviction. “But we’re also looking for this man,” he flashes Lucifer’s photo again. “Do you remember who this is?”

“Darth Vader.”

It’s said so solemnly that Dean almost gives an incredulous laugh.

“Castiel said that ‘Darth Vader’ means ‘dark father’ in ‘nother language,” Jack explains, hugging his arms around himself.

_Smart. Both of them._

“That’s right, Kid," Dean agrees, fighting down the sudden urge to put his hand on the kid’s shoulder. "Did Darth Vader mention any place special? Maybe somewhere he hoped to take you?”

“He talked about a lot of places. Said he’d take me to the beach and to see rollercoasters and even to space if I wanted—even though I told him you had to be bigger to go into space for real. I don’t think he was telling the truth—and Mommy told me never to trust people that lie. Cas wasn’t lying. He said I could have a backyard with a swing and as many books as I wanted.”

_Of course, he did._

“You’re a cool kid, you know that?” Dean smiles a little sadly. So far, he'd done a good job not thinking about the fact that his soulmate is all set up to be a parent—meanwhile, he's sometimes too lazy to do the laundry for three weeks straight. But at this moment, he almost wishes that he could take Jack home, play Star Wars with him until they both could forget their problems. At least, he seems to have a good thing going here—food, toys, people who care about him. It was more than Dean and Sam got with John a lot of the time.

Just then, his phone buzzes against his thigh like an angry wasp. Hopefully, it's not his brother who Dean failed to call back—again.

_Benny: Someone just picked up Lucifer at a casino in Kansas City. Bringing him in now._

Dean scrambles to his feet from where he’s been sitting on the floor—slightly embarrassed at how difficult it is. “Got a lead,” he says, in answer to Jody’s unspoken question.

“I’ll walk you out.”

But Dean turns to Jack first. “Hey, Buddy, mind if I visit you some time—just to say ‘hi’?”

Jack’s tilts his head to the side, curiously. “That would be a very short visit. You should stay to play too.”

Behind him, Jody mutters, “Castiel’s kid through and through.”

“Yeah, Jack," Dean responds, leaning over to ruffle his hair. "I’ll play too.”


	7. Chapter 7

The douche is goddamn _smirking_ as they sit across from him at the metal table in the interrogation room. “Let me guess—good cop, bad cop,” he quips, pointing first at Dean and then at Benny with hand-cuffed wrists. “Or should I just call you Thing 1 and Thing 2?”

“I know what I’m going to call you,” Dean says, turning a piece of paper to face his direction. “Nick Fachnan. Now, here I thought that it was your _parents_ who set you up to get bullied for life with a name like Lucifer Morningstar. As it turns out, though, you did that to yourself when you turned 18.”

He’s got to admit though, that, based on looks alone, the dude is not what he would have expected. He seems… pretty normal for someone who named himself like an emo garage band. Admittedly, he’s a bit hungover, but his blonde hair is kept in short spikes that are obviously the work of product and his brown overcoat matches his professional-looking loafers.

“Hey, compadre, I’d appreciate if you stopped checking me out. I’m not a piece of meat,” Nick announces with false offense.

“You wish,” Dean mutters, knowing for a fact that the condom in the guy’s wallet that their techs processed was well past its expiration date—and idly wondering how the other man got enough action to even _have_ Jack when he acted like he was always two seconds away from twirling his non-existent evil mustache.

“Do you know this man?” Benny interjects, gruffly, sliding over Castiel’s picture.

“Nope, never seen him before,” Nick replies, popping the ‘p’ without even looking down to see who they are talking about.

“Well, then, can you explain why we have a witness that saw you stalking his house on multiple occasions—and why footprints, matching yours, were found in his backyard?”

“People see the Devil everywhere.”

Dean grits his teeth.

“Not everywhere, apparently,” he says, after taking a breath and attaching a tight smile to his face. “Because I’m pretty sure Jack hadn’t seen you for seven years when you showed up out of the blue. And when you _did_ reappear in his life? He couldn’t care less.”

Ah, _that_ got a reaction. Nick lowers red-shot eyes to Dean, not hiding the tick in his jaw. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I don’t?” Dean mocks. “Turns out Jack and I are fast friends.” He stands up and takes his suit jacket off. At the same time, he slips a chocolate bar out of his pocket, feeling slightly bad he’d never given it to the kid. “He loves nougat, you know,” he adds, sitting back down, stripping the chocolate bar of its wrapper, and taking a savage bite.

“And according to this,” he adds, gesturing to the file. “He’s not your only son, either. Teddy? What happened to Teddy?”

Nick slams his hands against the table, metal handcuffs clanging against the metal surface. “You shut up! You shut your face about them or I swear--”

“What? You’ll kill me?” Dean would like to see him try. “Like you did to Carolyn Simmons and Roger Bowen?” He’s not sure whether Nick is the original Angel Killer or even the copycat one—he could just be someone with a rage boner for Cas—but the possibility is there—so he lays those pictures down too—smiling, happy pictures from before they were strung up like pinatas.

This time, at least, Nick skims them. “Am I supposed to recognize them or something? Cause I got no idea who those people are.”

“Just like you don’t know who Castiel Novak is?”

“Fine, fine,” Nick says, jabbing his index finger into Cas’s photo right between his eyes. “Yeah, I know him. A loser who’s trying to get his sense of self-importance from having _someone else’s_ kid call him Daddy. And maybe I checked out his place a little. It’s a parent’s prerogative. So, when I heard on the news that he got whisked off in the night, I didn’t exactly care.

“But Stepford wife and balding four-eyes, whoever they are—whatever happened to them—it wasn’t me. Case you didn’t notice, I just got out of a hellhole. I’m not looking to go back anytime soon.”

“You say that, but I was thinking about your name a little bit more, Lucy--”

“Well, it i _s_ a lot of syllables. I get why you’d have a bit of a hard time.”

“And ‘Morgenstern’ means ‘morning star’, right?” Dean continues as if there was no interruption. “Just like Lucifer means ‘light’. ‘Cause that’s who the devil was supposed to be, right? An angel? A fallen angel? A falling star?” Dean produces two pictures—one of Castiel’s front door and the other of Carolyn Simmons’ wrist, both with the same symbol. “So, is _this_ your signature then? Your way of leaving behind an ‘I was here’ since no one in your life seems to give at rat’s ass about you?”

Nick snorts, “I’d like to see you pin this on me using what you found on _Wikipedia_. You’ve got circumstantial evidence at best—and that’s all you’re _going_ to get because I. didn’t. do. this. I’ve got an alibi.”

“You’ve got an alibi for two murders and one kidnapping that we haven’t told you when they happened yet?”

“Fine. Hit me,” Nick prompts, making a ‘come here’ gesture with his hands. “When did Kung Fu Panda go missing?”

“Monday night into Tuesday morning.”

“I was at a casino.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “We checked with the casino. You arrived there Tuesday afternoon until we caught up with you Wednesday morning.”

“Not that casino. A different one. _Kansas Crossing._ They kicked me out because _apparently_ one of the waitresses can’t take a joke and thought I was sexually harassing her.”

Dean feels his stomach drop—because he can believe that all too well. And if Nick is telling the truth….

Benny goes on to ask about the times of disappearance for Carolyn Simmons and Roger Bowen. Nick was still in jail for the first and the second he spent with his parole officer—which is, unfortunately, a fuckin’ good alibi. And Nick knows it.

He’s back to almost beaming while Dean’s soulmark seems to burn hot under his shirt sleeves in accusation. God, anything could be happening to Cas right now—he might already have _his_ soulmark flayed from his skin—while Dean’s apparently no closer to finding him than when he started.

The only point of satisfaction he can muster is informing Nick that, based on what he’d said, they could hold him for entering private property, stalking, breaking parole to go to a casino, and for the several unregistered weapons they’d found in the trunk of his car. Dean’s also going to have a little chat with the waitress he was apparently feeling up—anything to make sure this asshole can’t see Jack unless it’s from the other side of prison bars. And _that_ wipes the smile off Nick’s face pretty quickly.

When Dean and Benny exit the interrogation room, Dean does him the favor of leaving behind the half-eaten chocolate bar.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I only got half as much accomplished in this chapter as I wanted to, but I hope you guys like it and, hopefully, I'll have another update soon.

Dean ends the call and immediately slams his hand against his desk, ignoring the stares of the other people in the bullpen. _Son of a bitch._ He’d just confirmed that Nick had, indeed, been about three shots past sober at a blackjack table in Pittsburg when Cas went missing.

_God fuckin’ dammit._

He was supposed to be better than this—Cas was _counting_ on him to be better than this—and he just…

He rests his forehead down against the hardwood, trying to level out his breathing. The worst part is that his brain won’t shut up for five minutes. And it’s not even doing anything useful—like going over the case. Of all things, it’s bringing up this stupid dinner he had with Sam a few years ago.

It was the first time he’d had his brother over to his new place since moving in with Lisa—and after she had excused herself to tuck her son, Ben, in for the night, he and Sam had taken their beers out to the porch.

_“So, what do you think of the new digs?” he’d asked, after twisting the bottle cap off._

_“It’s nice.”_

_Dean paused with his drink halfway to his mouth, “But…?”_

_“But nothing,” Sam shrugged, his crazy long legs stretching from the bench seat almost to the railing edging the porch. “It’s just a little bit more ‘white picket fence’ than I expected from you is all. Next, you’ll be driving a minivan.”_

_Dean snorted._

_“Coaching soccer,” Sam continued, an obvious smirk playing around the corners of his lips. “Hosting neighborhood BBQs.”_

_“OK, you can shut your face any time now.”_

_Sam’s smile softened. “It’s a nice place, Dean. Really.”_

_Dean debated not saying anything, but he had to know. “You cool with me and Lisa…?”_

_Sam rolled his eyes up to the stars, which were dim past the glow of streetlights, but still there. Watching. “You know I like her, Dean. I was the one who encouraged you to get back together, if you remember.”_

_Yes, Dean remembered. It was only a couple of months ago that they’d exploded into a fight about his job. Lisa didn’t like either the long hours or the worry that came with it—but it was in his blood, part of who he was. When they got back together, it was with an understanding never to bring it up again. Sometimes, he wondered if the reason Sam pushed them to reconcile was that he silently agreed with her. But that wasn’t worth bringing up._

_“So why have you been acting weird all night then?” Dean prompted instead, letting the cool beer slide down his throat._

_Sam sighed. “I guess I was just thinking about all the crap that we went through growing up.”_

_Dean raised his eyebrows._

_“I know, I know, you didn’t hate it the way that I did, but even you have to admit that we were hardly The Brady Bunch.” Sam tilted his head back as he took his own long swallow. “One day, Dad and I got into a fight and I ended up escaping to the library. My friend Ava was there—don’t know if you knew her.”_

_Dean didn’t._

_“She met her soulmate really young. And that day, we got to talking. I asked her how she knew that she was in love in him. Was it just because they had matching marks or…?” He glanced down at his wrist as if picturing the day his own soulmate would walk into his life._

_“She said that it wasn’t about the marks at all. That he—her boyfriend—was the first person who made all of the bad things she’d been through in life seem worth it. That if she had to go through them all again in order to find him, she would. And that…it just always stuck with me._

_“So, what I guess I want to know is—is that how you feel about Lisa? Like all the moving we did—all the hustling you had to do to keep food on the table while Dad went away on months-long undercover cases—is somehow balanced out because you ended up here?”_

_Dean’s bottle was empty. He wished it wasn’t. But because it was, he cleared his throat and tried to smile at his brother, “Dad tried, you know, to do what he thought was best for us.”_

_Sam tried to hide his flicker of sadness by turning his head, taking Dean’s non-answer as the answer it was._

_“Well, he should have tried harder,” he responded with the finality of someone digging a cigarette bud into the pavement. “He always expected us to.”_

Now, Dean didn’t believe that soulmates were an automatic thing—if he did, he’d never have been in a relationship with Lisa in the first place. But that had ended almost three years ago—and even though, since then, he’s longed for that connection with somebody, his luck has only seemed to get worse and worse.

And now he’s finally found the person the universe picked out for him—the one that, Sam believed, would magically make him feel better about himself or some shit—and from the sounds of it, Cas is actually a pretty amazing person. And he’s as helpless to stop what’s happening to him as he was when he was four goddamn years old.

“Er, Agent Winchester?” a voice asks from above him.

He rolls his head up to squint at the speaker—“Maggie” according to her name tag. She must at least be in her 20s but looks like a teenager, holding a box under the crook of her elbow and a digital pad out for him to sign with her other hand—all while flashing him a timid smile.

He grunts, but takes the pen, scribbling something that much more resembles a tumbleweed than his name.

“Have a good day,” she wishes him, after transferring the package, and before leaving with a swish of her light-brown ponytail.

Dean frowns down at the cardboard box. Whatever’s in it, it’s surprisingly light. There’s a manilla envelope folded in half and taped to the top, so he decides to start with that.

Inside are two pages printed from the same online blog, _Cluing You In_ by Cassie Robinson. The first is a write-up on April’s arrest from yesterday—the second, complete with blurry photographs of Nick in handcuffs being led into the station, is from just this morning. His eyes blur over as he reads, only picking out key phrases from the articles like ‘Castiel Novak’ and ‘Angel Killer’, the hairs on the back of his neck suddenly standing up.

He turns to the box with more hesitancy than before, wondering if he should do the smart thing and get someone to X-ray or dog-sniff it first or if he’s going to be reckless.

He settles somewhere in-between, grabbing gloves out of his desk drawer before flipping open his pocketknife and sliding it through the duct tape with an overly loud _brrrrrppp._

Inside are two scraps of fabric in plastic bags. The piece of nightgown is obviously older. While he can tell it used to be white with faint blue dots, it is now almost rust-brown, looking like someone had trampled it into the dust.

The second is from a plain Hanes T-shirt and it’s much more obvious that the stain on this one is blood—dried and cracking, but still deep red.

Dean’s mouth fills with the memory of the taste of iron as he looks into the package to see if it contains anything else—even though he somehow knows what it will be.

There, written in Sharpie on the bottom interior of the box, is a falling star over the words, “You’re getting colder, Winchester.”


	9. Chapter 9

Dean almost feels sorry for Kevin, who’s clearly worried about the news that he has to deliver. Most of it, Dean already knew deep down. DNA tests confirmed that the nightgown was Mary Winchester’s—the one she was wearing the night she disappeared—and the blood on the T-shirt matched Castiel Novak’s profile.

Both fabrics also contained ash residue—which made more sense in his mother’s case, since their house was set on fire. They could only conclude that Cas has been near a wood-burning fireplace recently, which excluded the electric one in his living room.

“And, uh,” Kevin bites his lip. “We compared Nick’s hair to that found at the crime scene—they’re not a match. And his shoes didn’t have the same mud that we found in the kitchen. He might have been creeping around the backyard and smushing his face up to Castiel’s window, but we can’t find any evidence he was actually inside.”

Now, Dean has never been the kind of person to believe in that ‘if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it all’ bullshit, but he does manage to spare Kevin the number of creative curse words going through his mind at the moment.

His father’s not going to get off so easily. “Dad,” he hisses at John’s voicemail the second he’s out of the lab. “You call me as soon as you get this. I’m not playing around.”

Then, he turns around and almost instantly collides with Bobby.

“Been looking for you, Dean,” the older man says, gruffly, and just the fact that he didn’t call him “Winchester” at work is enough to make Dean’s shoulders tense even as he adopts a confident smile.

“Should have just followed the path of swooning ladies. It’s like a breadcrumb trail leading right to me.”

Bobby crosses his arms and snorts. “I don’t know how many swooning ladies you think we have around here, but it’s a lot less than the number who would kick your ass for saying something like that.”

Very true but that’s the least of Dean’s problems right now.

Too-observant blue eyes crawl over his face, almost like Bobby’s dividing his features into a grid and examining each in turn like he would at a crime scene. “Now, I know that if I ask how this case is going, you’re gonna say you’re handling everything fine. But I also know when you’re lying, so go ahead and tell me,” Bobby demands.

Dean grimaces. “It’s been a hell of a day,” he eventually admits. And, of course, at that moment, he can’t help but notice Gordon Walker hovering in the background. The man’s been angling for The Angel Killer case for the last six months—and that’s only eighth on the list of reasons why Dean doesn’t like him. “But so long as Castiel stays not dead, I’ll be fine.”

He focuses back on Bobby and puts a little extra conviction in his voice. “I’ll be _less OK_ if you take me off this case.” And though Bobby quirks an eyebrow at the attitude, Dean _is_ being honest, and his uncle can see that.

“I want a copy of what you got so far on my desk by this afternoon. My eyes ain’t exactly fresh, but that doesn’t mean they can’t spot something useful,” he declares at last.

“Yes, sir,” Dean breathes, relaxing slightly, and maybe smirking at Gordon over Bobby’s shoulder.

“Alright then, go on. Git. And call Sam back. The boy’s got his panties all in a twist from you ignoring him.”

 _That_ wipes the smile off his face, as Dean nods and abruptly flees. He _can’t_ talk to Sam right now.

Sometimes, he thinks his brother is goddamn psychic—but he’s also a goddamn pain in the ass when it comes to pressing Dean beyond his limits. The worst thing right now would be for his brother to figure out the larger picture at stake here and then press him to _talk_ about it. He doesn’t need to feel; he needs to think.

“Anything?” Dean asks, pushing into Charlie’s office, though the redhead is almost completely obscured from view by Benny’s tall, broad frame.

“The package delivery was paid for using Castiel Novak’s credit card and picked up from the drop-off location at his martial arts studio,” Charlie declares, which doesn’t sound like good news but…

“Didn’t Cas have surveillance cameras installed?” Dean asks, hopefully.

“Exactly, brother,” Benny says, patting him on the back as he approaches and nodding towards the screen where Charlie pulls up the appropriate footage.

Dean watches as a guy dressed in a black hoodie and dark pants sets a box down on the stoop. “He flashes a bit of skin there,” Benny says when the video pauses with the man’s wrist exposed. “So, we can confirm he’s white. Height analysis shows he’s 6’1” or 6’2” and seems fairly fit. ‘Course, all this only helps if the Angel Killer didn’t hire someone to drop off the box for him.”

Dean doesn’t think so. Everything about this guy screams that he likes to be in control. He didn’t even like other people being _suspected_ of his work—meaning most likely, he’s operating solo. “Any clue how he got there?”

“We don’t have a camera angle that allows us to see him getting out of or into a vehicle. But traffic cams from either end of the street show a few dozen cars and a couple of motorcycles on that road within ten minutes of the package drop-off. We’re compiling a list of people based on license plates, but unless someone sticks out, that will still be about 75 people to interview by the end of the day tomorrow.”

“I’ll take a list of 75 over what we have now,” Dean says, almost slumping with relief. They’re still making progress—and it’s the killer’s fault for needing to brag. He would have fun rubbing _that_ in the douche’s face when they catch him.

For the next two hours, they go over the footage again and again, prioritizing vehicles. Cars that clearly had families in them or which only contained a female driver were unlikely suspects; however, they can’t get a clear view into everyone’s car—sometimes due to the angle, other times to window tinting. So far, none of the people the cars are registered to have a record or any known associations to the victims.

Eventually, Benny takes off with a list of ten people to talk to while Dean waits for Charlie to compile a second one.

“Do me a favor,” Dean says once the door has closed with a _crick-crick_ behind his partner. “Put a trace on this number?” he asks, handing over a badly torn piece of paper from his pocket notebook. “It’s my dad’s,” he adds, just because she’s about to find out anyway.

“Sure…?” she responds, taking the paper gingerly, but not moving otherwise. The _Why?_ is clearly implied.

“I need to ask him a question about the original case,” Dean answers, determined to say nothing else.

The ensuing staring contest is pretty easy to win, with Charlie cursing her mascara for sabotaging her.

“I’ll do it after the rest of this,” she concedes, skimming what she can find on license plate number BQT 9807 belonging to a Max Miller.

Dean attempts to stifle a yawn. He apparently doesn’t do a good job of it, though, because Charlie points in the direction of her couch. “Go take a load off for 30 minutes.”

“I’m--”

“You’re dead on your feet and reading everything over three times because you’re not processing any of the information. Trust me, I can do this part,” Charlie insists, and this time, she’s definitely not playing a game with him.

Dean grumbles as walks over to the squishy looking sofa with a Zelda throw over the back to appease her. He tells himself he’s too wired to sleep. That he’s only going to close his eyes for a minute until the slight aching in his head disappears. That, any second now, he’s gonna get back up and work on the case. He’s…

 _He’s in a forest. Late afternoon sunlight is shining prettily on the wildflowers ahead—and he feels bad for crushing them under his stumbling feet—but there’s no helping it. There’s no one helping_ him _either, he reminds himself, almost positive that one of his toes is broken, but knowing he’ll be in a lot worse shape if he doesn’t keep moving._

_He makes it his goal to get to the next tree, then the next, leaning on each more heavily as he goes—the rough bark scraping into his shoulder, sap sticking to the side of his hair._

_The “just a little more” is a lie he’s telling himself and, abruptly, his body stops believing it, legs giving out suddenly. At least he manages to put his back to a tree trunk, head between his knees, trying to hear anyone following him over the sounds of his own harsh breathing._

“Dean!” Someone calls. “Dean!”

The agent feels his body jolt back to awareness all at once, fingers automatically reaching for the gun he keeps under his pillow, only to find the space empty. The next second, however, he’s able to recognize that the red curtain in front of him isn’t actually a curtain—it’s hair that smells vaguely like strawberries and once he’s got that puzzle piece in place, the rest of Charlie resolves itself fairly easily.

“What’s up?” he mumbles, voice still rough with sleep, batting at his eyes to get the gunk out.

Charlie holds out two pieces of paper—and it takes him a second to figure out what they are. One is clearly the list of car owners they’d been working on. The _other_ is an address of a bar he’s never heard of about ten miles outside the city—and exactly the kind of place he would expect to find John Winchester on a Wednesday at 4 o’clock.

There’s a chance that his father is there for business—since leaving the KBI when Dean was fourteen, John had opened up his own private investigation firm, which involves a lot of tailing cheating spouses and chatting up loose-lipped drunks—but there’s also a chance that Dean will win the lottery someday.

“So…” Charlie asks, dangling both temptingly in front of his face. “Which is it gonna be?”


	10. Chapter 10

“Come on, get up,” Dean demands, pouring John’s shot of whiskey down his own throat before his dad can down it.

“You think you can talk to your father like that?” John asks in the same hard tone. But there’s a glassiness in his eyes, like the glass cages at the zoo. Dean knows there’s something dangerous on the other side, but it’s contained…for now.

“We’re going. Now,” Dean insists after clearing the tab with the bartender, hooking one hand under his dad’s armpit and hauling him from his stool, quickly remembering John still has a lot of muscle to him. Ignoring his muttered curses, they eventually make it out to Baby, Dean shoving John towards the shotgun seat.

“I’ll smack you so hard--” John begins, but Dean doesn’t let him get the threat out.

“I need you to tell me who you killed when I was twelve. Or, I swear to God, I will turn you in right now.”

/////

_Dean was used to taking care of Sam. A lot of times when his dad worked undercover, they would stay with their Uncle Bobby. But not when John went on his own ‘hunts’, as he called them._

_Then, Dean just had to make do—stretching $20 into enough food for the week—patching up Sam’s clothes when they got holes in them even though he couldn’t make them grow an inch every time that his brother did. He forged John’s name on report cards and field trip forms and, most of the time, thought it was cool that his dad thought he was mature enough to hold down the fort on his own._

_But he’d been gone too long now. The landlord of their crappy, cockroach-infested apartment had come by twice asking for the rent and Dean was worried that the guy at the grocery store was starting to look at him weird every time he came in and out wearing his Dad’s oversized leather jacket and not buying anything._

_The only thing they had going for them was that both he and his brother were popular kids—usually able to swing an invitation to hang out at a friend’s house in the evenings, where they would be offered dinner._

_Of course, Dean thought what his dad was doing was important. He was going after the bastard that killed his mom and sometimes Dean’s biggest wish was that he could be there when he finally caught him._

_But right then, with his stomach trying to eat itself both from hunger and stress, he had to face the fact that what his dad was doing was dangerous—that he might not come back—and Dean didn’t know if he could forgive him for dying while Sam still needed him._

_He was just about to visit the laundromat with the busted camera and an easy-to-trick change machine when the door sprung open under John Winchester’s stumbling weight._

_His dad had a quarter-sized scab on his forehead, surrounded by a veined and purpling bruise, and he walked in a way that clearly indicated his back was killing him._

_Dean almost sank to his knees in relief._

They never talked about the specifics of where John had been. Or why John burned the shoes he’d worn that day. Or why Dean never saw his dad’s favorite Colt ever again.

John ordered him to tell anyone who came asking that he’d been home all week and Dean never questioned it. Nor did he ask why his dad never went on another hunt after that.

Because in addition to knowing the truth, Dean knew how to keep his mouth shut.

/////

“What’s got your panties in a twist?” John Winchester drawls nineteen years later, like he didn’t even hear Dean.

“You mean, besides the fact that the Angel Killer is still out there kidnapping and stabbing people? How about that _my father_ shot someone who could be innocent? Or that I’m a _cop_ and I let you get away with it.”

“You didn’t _let me_ \--”

Dean smacks his hands against the steering wheel, flinching slightly at Baby’s honk of protest.

“I got sent Mom’s bloody nightgown in the _mail,_ Dad,” and _that,_ at least, seems to mean something to John. “Who else but the Angel Killer would have that? So, you are going to tell me what the hell it is that you _think_ you know or I’m putting you in handcuffs.”

“Someone’s playing a trick on you. I got him. There’s not a doubt in my mind, I got the _right_ guy.”

“Glad you’re convinced. Now convince _me._ Let’s start with a name,” Dean’s breathing hard through his teeth, the soulmark on his arm burning again. It’s all becoming too real, looking at his Dad’s dead eyes. That could be him the day after tomorrow.

Sure, he doesn’t know Cas the way John had known and loved Mary. He probably wouldn’t be _as_ devastated. But he’s already got an emptiness in him from what happened with his mom and if the hole Cas leaves behind joins with the one she left, he’s never going to be himself again.

“Alex Zazael,” John grits at last, speaking to the windshield.

“What made you look at him?” Dean asks with false patience. Years of habit have his fingers itching to take notes, but he keeps them flat against his thighs.

“The falling star. It was his soulmark—like I always said. One of my contacts ran into a girl with the same one by the name of Eve. She worked the maternity floor of a hospital out in Missouri. So, I paid her a visit.”

“Don’t look at me like that,” John snaps when he meets Dean’s glance. “I just _talked_ to her. And, boy, was she was willing to throw Zazael under the bus. Some people are so messed up that even their soulmates can’t stand them—hate them worse because they’re supposed to love them. Eve might have killed the fuckwad herself except she had a son she was raising on her own. Didn’t want to risk going to jail.”

Dean doesn’t point out that John had _two_ sons at the time and that didn’t stop him from taking the same risk. “So, what? This guy used to talk about the people he killed as pillow talk?”

“Didn’t have to. Eve said he was always gone the nights the Angel Killer struck. Had a library full of books on angel symbolism. Doesn’t take a genius to put 2 and 2 together.

“And after I talked to her, I kept digging. The Angel Killer’s first kill—was Azazael’s next-door neighbor from when he was a kid. Apparently, he was obsessed with her—and she wouldn’t look at him because he wasn’t her soulmate. So, he cut off her [tattoo](http://www.prettydesigns.com/15-angel-wing-tattoo-designs-try/) and replaced it with his own so they finally matched.”

Dean clenches his hands against his legs, feels the nails dig into the skin even through his pants.

He’s been an agent for a while now. Most people grow numb to these kinds of stories. But not a Winchester. Right now, his anger is as hot as a meteor burning its way through the atmosphere.

And John’s right there with him, the glassiness completely gone from his expression. “Even without all of that, Dean, when I tracked the son of a bitch down—when I dragged him from his bed, and he looked at me with those beady little eyes—I knew who he was. I must have seen him before—while he was stalking Mary. His face haunted my nightmares those days she was missing. I’d bet my life—your life— _Mary’s_ life”—his voice was almost feral—“He was the one.”

And, at last, Dean believes him. John Winchester lies about many things—but he wouldn’t about this.

But if Cas really _was_ kidnapped by a copycat, it had to be one who had access to the Angel Killer’s things. It’s been almost 20 years since the last killings….

“You said he had a son?”


	11. Chapter 11

“Pick up, pick up!” Dean demands, jiggling his leg so that it brushes the keys sticking out of his ignition.

“You have reached the voicemail of--”

“Goddammit!” Dean growls and barely resists throwing his phone into the passenger side window. Instead, he holds it so tightly in his hands that there’s a chance he might break the damn thing.

He’s just blown through a yellow light when it buzzes to life in his hands.

“Sammy?”

“‘Fraid not, Brother,” comes Benny’s (usually) soothing drawl. “Just letting you know we were able to reach Judge Mosley and she signed the search warrants.” He pauses. “I’ll admit, I’m still wondering what lit a fire under your pants about this guy _now_. You didn’t seem to think he was a suspect after you talked to him on Tuesday. And Charlie didn’t find his car on the security footage….”

“Forget about his car. Maybe he was driving the company car. Or took an Uber. Or maybe he fuckin’ walked. It’s _him_ —and when I get my hands on that….” He’s not even talking to Benny anymore, just himself. “I _knew_ that douche nozzle was a psycho. Why the hell does Sam never _listen to me_?”

And yet, even as he says it, guilt churns in his gut like his stomach is a washing machine A) because his brother won’t answer the damn phone so he can tell him ‘I told you so’ and B) because if Dean _really_ knew just how much of a messed up fuckwad Sam’s ‘friend’ was, he would have manned up enough to call his brother earlier and _confirm_ that he’d been at that stupid charity ball Monday night.

His phone beeps and he takes his eyes off the road to check the incoming caller. “It’s Charlie. I’m patching her in,” Dean informs Benny, punching the necessary buttons and holding his phone between his shoulder and his ear as he takes a corner a little too sharply.

“Here’s all I got on Tyson Brady,” the computer tech says from the other end of the line. “Originally born Tyson Zazael, his mother went back to her maiden name when he was two and changed his at the same time. There’s not really much information from when he was a minor, but he presumably got good grades because he got into Stanford where…oh….”

“Oh? What ‘oh’?”

“Seems he was questioned in the death of a fellow college student by the name of Jessica Moore. Just as a witness but--”

“Son of a _bitch!”_

Blond hair, 6’2, recently knew the victim, would have had access to a ton of Cas’s personal information. Everything _fit,_ but somehow, he hadn’t put the pieces together.

God, Cas was taken over 40 hours ago. Who knows what he must have been through in that time? And it’s all Dean’s fuckin’ fault.

“I’ll be at his house in 10,” Benny informs Dean, who, in turn, tells him, he’s five minutes behind. Not that he thinks Cas is being kept in suburbia, but maybe Brady will be there. At the very least, there’s got to be some clue where he takes his targets (Dean’s mind is automatically shying away from the word ‘victims’ while Cas is still missing).

He’s just spotted Benny’s car in Brady’s otherwise empty driveway when his phone rings again. This time, the name ‘Bitch’ lights up the screen.

Dean slumps over his steering wheel in relief. He’s not even quite sure what he’s afraid of—except the knowledge that there is no way in a hell that the son of the Angel Killer and the son of the Angel Killer’s executioner were assigned to be dormmates just because of _coincidence_.

“Sam--” he breathes into his phone.

“Dean? What’s wrong? Did Dad--”

It’s probably a logical jump to make after he’d called Sam eight times in twenty minutes.

“No, no, it’s not that. It’s--” Dean picks up the sound of people murmuring in the background and soft jazz playing. He changes sentences abruptly. “Where are you right now?”

“At a business dinner. That’s why I had my phone off.”

“Is Brady there?” Dean asks, throat dry.

“Yes, Dean.” The agent can almost hear his brother’s eye roll. “He’s actually been asking about you…Well, about updates on Cas. They must have been friendlier than I thought—he seems to be taking the whole situation kind of hard. Had to take the morning off and he still doesn’t seem like his usual--”

“Poughkeepsie, Sam,” Dean says—and it doesn’t matter if it’s been years since they used that word, the mention of it still causes his brother to cut himself off. Dean hurries to get this next part out. “Now, I know you think I have a grudge against the guy and you’re right, but I need you to _believe me._ I have hard proof--” (He has his Dad’s story, but close enough) “that he has hurt people. That _he_ is the one that hurt Cas. So, I need you to tell me where you without tipping him off that we’re coming for him. Can you do that?”

“I--” Sam clears his throat and a few seconds pass by painfully slowly. “Absolutely, Dean, I’d love to help,” he states next in an obvious attempt to sound casual.

And goddamn, Dean loves his little brother—for so many reasons, but especially for trusting him right now even though he likely _want_ s Dean to be lying.

“Dean, I really have to go or my client’s going to wonder why I’ve been gone so long,” Sam continues. “But we should catch up sometime soon. Maybe have lunch here at the Swedish Crown. I think you’d like it.” Well, that would come off as an obvious lie to anyone who knows him, so Dean hopes Brady is nowhere within hearing distance.

Dean quickly pulls up the location of the restaurant on his phone and sees that it is about 25 minutes away. Trying to storm Brady in the middle of a crowd full of diners isn’t likely a good idea though. “When are you going to be finished eating?”

“Oh, you know these kinds of meals go. We might be here for another hour or two.”

 _Shit._ “I’m going to text you when we get there. And then you excuse yourself to the bathroom, you understand me? I doubt he’s packing at a restaurant, but I don’t want him holding a steak knife to your throat when he sees us coming. Understand?”

The hesitation is back in Sam’s voice. He can hear it even before his brother’s said anything.

“Sam, _please,_ ” Dean requests, every big brother instinct in his body screaming uselessly.

He hears Sam swallow. “Sure, Dean, I can make that work.”

 _Thank you,_ he says to a God that may or may not exist. “Thank you,” he repeats to Sam. “We’ll be there as fast as we can.”

Quickly shouting the directions to Benny who had been leaning against his own car, waiting on Dean, he whips his way out of Brady’s driveway and back onto the road, determined to break every traffic law there is on the way.

/////

In the end, even Dean doesn’t really get in on the action. Benny (the traitor) called Bobby on the way to the restaurant to inform him of the situation. The Director then promptly ordered that Benny was to go in alone since Brady wouldn’t recognize him and, therefore, would be less likely to react dangerously to him showing up.

Dean stands, stewing outside the restaurant’s doors, persuading several people just by the look in his eyes to choose a different restaurant. He feels almost sick—skin too tight and tingly, his clothes (and bulletproof vest) almost unbearably hot. He unbuttons the top button of his collar, pushes his sleeves up—just waiting, _straining_ his ears for any sound.

It takes only five minutes for him to decide that he’s given them long enough.

He puts his hand to the door handle—and that’s when he hears the crash of several plates and a few women’s startled screams. Instantly, he’s inside the building, gun pointed towards the center of the room, which gets a few more of the customers yelling.

But then he sees Brady, face pressed against a white linen tablecloth, hair in his souffle, and his hands being cuffed behind his back—and he reluctantly stows his gun if not his anger.

“Oh, this must be a pretty sight for you, Dean,” Brady remarks like he’s _not_ being bent over a table by a stocky Cajun in front of an entire restaurant of gawkers.

“Nothing about you is a pretty sight for me,” Dean promises, stalking over, reaching the table in only five or ten strides. Briefly, he spots his brother out of the corner of his eye, hovering near the bathroom door, but he doesn’t let himself get distracted—not when he’s so close to getting answers.

“Where. Is. Cas?” Dean demands when he’s close enough, smacking the table near Brady’s head with both arms so that the remaining dishes on it rattle.

It’s a mistake. Because the motion draws Brady’s attention to his arms—to his wrists, which are approximately at his eye level—and to a very familiar soulmark. Dean can tell the instant he notices it, as his eyes narrow, then widen.

And then the fucker starts _laughing,_ flashing the first genuine smile Dean has ever seen on his face.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI, I'm extending this fic by another chapter because...reasons.

“Where is _Cas?”_ Dean growls for what feels like the hundredth time, his wrist once again covered by his shirt sleeve but feeling exposed anyway.

“No idea,” Brady smirks as he leans forward, conspiratorially. “And I’m pretty sure that’s your job to figure out. Not mine.”

“We’re going through your house, your car—we’re going to find _something_ —and when we do…Well, you’re a lawyer. You know you’ll get off better by cooperating with our investigation.”

“ _Guilty_ people get rewarded for being forthcoming. Since I haven’t done what you’ve accused me of, there’s nothing more I can do to help you. I’ve already given you all of the information I have regarding Mr. Novak.” His handcuffs are attached to the table by a long chain, which clatters as he spreads his hands wide. It’s the universal gesture of “I’ve got nothing to hide”. It’s also a bunch of bullshit.

“Funnily enough, I don’t remember you mentioning you’d been in his house recently. DNA confirmed it was your hair in the living room.”

“Because there’s _no way_ that my hair transferred to him during one of our numerous meetings and that he then transferred it to his own house, right?”

“You lied about your alibi,” Dean reminds him through his teeth.

Brady raises an eyebrow. “Did I? Multiple people saw me at the charity event. I’ve already given you their names.”

“Yes and—strange thing is—not a single one of them remembers seeing you after about 10 o’clock.”

“Well, you know how these parties go. I must have gotten lost in the crowd.”

Dean rises from his chair—fully intending to cut the smirk off the guy’s face and stitch it back on upside down—when suddenly, Benny is there, pinning his arms behind his back and manhandling him out of the door.

“Dean… _Dean,_ ” his partner warns him, pushing him away towards the opposite wall once they’re in the hallway. “You know you can’t act like that if you want any charges to stick.”

“Screw the charges! We don’t have enough evidence without Cas, so he’s waiting us out—hoping Cas will starve to death or bleed out first—and I ain’t gonna let that happen.” It’s already past 9 and Dean’s doing his best to hide the fact that all the muscles in his body are vibrating—like guitar strings that haven’t realized that their song has ended.

“We don’t have enough evidence _yet,”_ Benny reminds him. “But we’ve barely started looking into his records. Go collaborate with Charlie. I’ll take over the interrogation.”

He holds his hand up against Dean’s automatic protests. “He gets to you, Brother,” Benny says, flatly. “And he _knows_ he gets to you. And he likes that too much to admit to anything even if it’s in his best interests.”

Dean tries to find fault with his partner’s argument, but ever since they picked Brady up, it’s been hard to think anything except _Cas, Cas, Cas—_ the name getting faster and more forceful with every minute that passes—like an angry spirit is trying to talk to him from the other side. He needs to be doing _something_ and he needs to have started it five minutes ago.

“Fine,” he grits. “You take a shot with the son of a bitch.” _Son of a bastard, more like_. Then, he turns on his heel, determined not to waste any more time.

/////

Charlie gives him the rundown quickly. “Right now, I’m checking his Amazon delivery history to see if that might give us a clue where he is keeping Cas. But he’s only had things sent to his house or his mother’s and we already have agents in both those locations.”

“He’s too smart for something like that,” Dean tells her. _Unfortunately._

“We do have some additional circumstantial evidence, though. Proof of purchase of a tattoo gun and ink from about a year ago. It could be what he’s been using to leave the replacement soulmarks.”

Dean grunts. It’s both something and nothing. “GPS in his car?”

“Disabled.”

Dean paces the length of the room behind the redhead’s chair. “Well, what about gas stations? If he’s going back and forth from the city to his hidey-hole, he has to stop for fuel somewhere along the way at least some of the time.”

Charlie gets instantly excited. “I knew I only surrounded myself with top-tier handmaidens,” she praises, fingers flying over her keyboard. “If we only look at the dates before and after each kidnapping and murder--” Dean flinches but doesn’t say anything. “Looks like his credit card was most frequently used at a 7-11 in Fort Scott. Rural area…Lots of nearby woods….”

So, on the right track, but still an impossible amount of area to search. “And no family properties he could be using?”

“Sorry,” Charlie says with such sincerity that it makes Dean feel worse. _Think, think, think,_ he demands of himself. _Cas, Cas, Cas,_ his brain responds.

He flips open his phone.

“Dean,” Sam breathes over the line. “What’s happening?”

“Brady’s not talking. And I need to find where Cas is,” he croaks, no longer trying to hide from his brother how much this case is affecting him as his voice cracks on ‘need.’ “Do you have any clue, Sam? Some place he mentioned going on the weekends? Somewhere he liked to go hiking? Near Fort Scott maybe…?” He holds his breath like he’s waiting for a doctor to give him his diagnosis.

“No, no, nothing like--” Sam abruptly cuts himself off, causing the _Cas, Cas, Cas_ to take on a dangerously hopeful tone.

“What, Sam? What did you just think of?”

“Well, it could be nothing but…”

“Skip the foreplay.”

Even under these circumstances, his brother manages to get out an " _ew"_ that Dean promptly ignores. “Brady does family law. Adoptions, estate planning, probate.”

“Why do I care, Sam?”

“Most of the time, when someone is writing out their will, they name a relative or a friend to be the executor—to pay off the deceased’s debts, file paperwork with the court, and distribute assets to any named heirs.

“Only _sometimes_ people don’t have someone in their life who can take on that role for them after their passing. Or they do have someone, but that person isn’t interested in the responsibility. Or maybe the deceased didn’t write a will at all and….”

Dean stops himself from making another snarky comment because his brother does usually have a point when he rambles this way even if he was the kind of kid who highlighted almost every sentence in his textbook, unable to condense things down to the important points.

Sam takes a deep breath and so does Dean, figuring his brother is finally reaching the end of his long, winding road. “Under those circumstances, a lawyer usually takes over the role for a commission.”

“So, what you’re saying is….” Dean prompts, flipping a few puzzle pieces around in his mind to get them to fit.

“That Brady is the executor of the will for several deceased clients. If one of them has property in Fort Scott and he hasn’t dispersed their assets yet….”

Dean’s super glad he never dropped Sam on his head as a baby. “Charlie!” he shouts over the end of his brother’s sentence. “I need you to cross-check….”

/////

Several hours later, two KBI SUVs and an ambulance struggle along a gravel pathway, headlights bouncing wildly. It’s quiet out—they’ve probably scared any wildlife for miles around—the air feeling denser with humidity and anticipation the further in they go.

Dean feels strangely detached from his body—watching the world like it’s a movie. Or like he’s revisiting a dream he had before. But that doesn’t stop him from feeling it in his bones with the van lurches within sight of an A-frame style cabin with a busted front door. He’s out of the vehicle before it’s fully come to a stop, ignoring the wet leaves that stick to his boots as he sprints towards the building.

The whole cabin is one room with almost no furniture in it. A twin bed against the wall. A table, lined with tools. A trashcan piled high with food containers.

But three things, in particular, catch his attention.

A wood-burning fireplace.

A chair, dangling broken zip ties, that has fallen and broken against the floor.

And no Cas to be seen.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently, _some_ people were impatient after the last cliffhanger.
> 
> It was me. I'm people. So 2nd upload this weekend.
> 
> One more chapter to go (most likely. It's probably going to be a long one or maybe get divided into two) but still, so close!

Dean hears people talking around him—knows that some of them sound worried—but his mind keeps resetting itself, jumping backward in time like a broken record.

The fireplace.

The chair.

He’s seen this before.

“Dean,” his partner shakes his shoulder and he would guess this isn’t the first time he’s said his name. “Come on, we’re organizing a search party. We’re hoping he didn’t wander far, but it depends on what his condition is, when he escaped….”

Dean waves him off. What had Dad said just a few hours ago?

_“Even without all of that, Dean, when I tracked the son of a bitch down—when I dragged him from his bed, and he looked at me with those beady little eyes—I knew who he was…. His face haunted my nightmares those days she was missing.”_

Suddenly, the dreams he’s been having—of sitting in this exact chair, trying to pull against restraints—of running through the woods, scared someone was chasing him—take on a whole new meaning. “He’s been gone at least nine hours,” he says, definitively, already running away from Benny toward the ambulance.

“Dean, wait--!”

“Do you have anything that could put me to sleep?” he asks the EMTs inside the medical van, breathing heavily.

They only have a few seconds to look at him like he’s insane before Benny is once again at his side, spinning him around. “Now, I have followed your lead without questioning a lot the last coupla days, but right now, you’re gonna stop and tell me what _the hell_ is going on.”

Dean explains himself in a rush, Benny’s eyes growing warier with every word he speaks.

“It’s actually a recorded phenomenon in soulmate pairs who are under extreme duress,” one of the eavesdropping EMTs mention. “It’s similar to when a twin senses that their sibling is in danger or hurting.”

“Good, yes,” Dean says, pointing at her, feeling relieved that he wouldn’t have to waste more time arguing what he can _feel_ is true. “So…knockout drugs? Give ‘em to me,” he demands, feeling painfully more awake with every moment even if it is nearing 2 in the morning.

“Anything we have will put you completely under. You won’t be able to dream,” the EMT, Amelia, informs him.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake--”

Dean rounds on Benny, considering. “Hit me,” he tells the other agent, folding the fingers of both hands towards his wrists in invitation.

“Are you outta your mind?”

“Come on, Benny, most people in my life have wanted to hit me at least once. I’m giving you permission. Knock me out.”

“Let me guess, you’re the kind of guy who also smacks your TV to make it work better? Punching your lights out ain’t gonna solve anything.”

“Except it _will_. You won’t get in trouble. I’ll say that I ran into a tree or something….” And when that doesn’t seem to work, he adds, “Jo would totally hit me right now.” That is unsuccessful too.

But if there is anything that can be said about Dean Winchester it is that he knows how to push things too far. And somewhere between telling the most racist jokes he can think of and imagining what his partner’s wife is like in bed, he sees Benny’s fist launch itself at his face.

/////

The world is shades of black. Trees are dark shadows against a black night. So are his legs, jutting out from him at an awkward angle. The only thing that has any color is the puddle of puke beside him, though he’d managed to cover it with some leaves.

He feels his body and his mind separating—like oil and water. His heavy limbs are sinking down into the earth while his thoughts are becoming less grounded, floating away as soon as they come into his head. Soon, they won’t be connected at all anymore. And the worst part is, he’s forgetting why that’s a bad thing….

/////

Dean wakes with a smell like cleaning fluid in his nose, his left cheek throbbing. It takes him a minute to make sense of the two hands in front of him—one large and covered with a light dusting of hair, the other delicate and manicured—until he realizes he’s being offered help up.

He takes it, shakily.

The dream was different this time as he struggled to make his own observations, not just focus on what Cas was seeing and thinking. “Wherever he is, it’s near water. Not a pond. Something flowing, like a creek.” He accepts the cold pack pressed to his face, while Benny pulls out the topographical map of the area they acquired before making the trip to Fort Scott. “And, uh--” God, Benny really decked him. “The water sound was coming from the same direction as the North Star….”

“How was his condition?” Amelia asks, preparing a bag of supplies.

“He’s cold. Too cold considering it’s 60 out here. Nauseous. Dizzy.”

“Blood loss, though if he’s not passed out yet, it’s probably still less than 40%. Maybe 20-30.”

That still seems like a hell of a lot of blood to lose. But at least the area Benny is circling with his red Sharpie looks significantly smaller than the un-circled areas. “I’ll tell the search party your boy’s most likely here,” he says, putting the thought into action as soon as he says it.

 _Cas, Cas, Cas,_ Dean’s brain repeats yet again. _We’re coming._

/////

Castiel doesn’t really believe his life is flashing before his eyes so much as he is _choosing_ to remember certain things to push away the cold and the blackness.

He focuses on colors—the fiery flash of Anna’s hair—the purple Willy Wonka costume Gabriel wore once for Halloween—golden sunlight on Jack’s head. There’s Meg’s teal leather jacket and Balthazar’s ridiculous pink cocktails. Next, he pictures the tae kwon do belts he’s won over the years in all their range of colors, the silver trophies, his black graduation gown.

He hears his name being shouted, but his mind doesn’t register it, too busy thinking about the bright blue of his Gas-n-Sip vest that people said matched his eyes and the royal blue sweater that he wore for his date with Daphne Allen—the first of very few dates in his life. He thinks about the grapefruit-orange color of sunrise and wishes that the thought was enough to summon one.

There’s his name again—only it gets cut off before the “tiel” by someone nearly tripping over him.

And Castiel _should_ be scared that he’s been found—should be trying to get away—but he’s so incredibly tired and the hands that are on his face are so incredibly _warm_ that he leans into them instinctively. They don’t feel like hands that wish to harm him.

There are fingers under the divot of his chin, and he realizes he’s being asked to raise his head. To look into the man’s face. To meet the man’s gaze. So, with agonizing slowness, he does.

Suddenly, the black is gone. All he sees is…

_Green._


	14. Chapter 14

Cas doesn’t stay awake for long once they get him in the ambulance.

He was already pretty out of it before that—his eyes losing focus for minutes at a time before snapping back to Dean’s with a jolt. Dean wondered if he could feel it—whatever ‘it’ soulmates were made of— without Dean having to tell him. But that question would have to wait hours, if not days—and he supposed that it wasn’t the worst thing in the world if the guy just found him pretty.

Speaking of…. He doesn’t want to perv on someone unconscious (even if that someone is the destined love of his life) but with nothing else to do but try to steady himself against the jolts of the medical van, it’s hard not to notice the slight curl to his hair—probably from sweat—the deep dip of his collar bones and the natural elegance of his calloused hands. But most of all, he watches the rise and fall of Castiel’s chest, the twitch of his cheeks in his sleep—because these are proof that he’s alive and that Dean will get to see what this man is like on the inside as well as on the outside.

The hospital is, without a doubt, boring. They wheel Cas away for tests, telling Dean it’ll be a couple of hours. He paces the waiting room, trying to get out of the way of the other pacing family members, and when that doesn’t help, he hits up the gift shop for some balloons or a ‘get well’ card—except neither of those things because that’s super lame.

They have a glass solar-powered bee that you can stick in your garden and it will light up and rotate at night that he thinks Cas might like, but it’s still not _right,_ so he walks out of the store empty-handed.

It’s as he’s standing listlessly in front of the vending machine, which contains exactly the kind of food hospitals probably shouldn’t have, when an idea comes to him…. He just hopes he makes it back before Cas wakes up.

/////

When he comes in with his ‘gift’ tucked under his arm, it’s to find Gabriel and Anna going off on the person behind the waiting desk. “I told you already, we _are_ his fuckin’ family--”

“His medical records--” the woman argues.

“Anna’s his emergency contact!”

“The person listed in this file is an Anna Roman, not Anna Milton.”

“Well, clearly, he wrote that before I changed back to my maiden name!” the redhead snaps.

Dean clears his throat as he approaches. “What seems to be the problem here?” he asks with a polite smile.

“And you are?” The woman, whose nametag says ‘Billie’, arches a perfectly manicured eyebrow.

“Special Agent Dean Winchester, here to see Castiel Novak.”

Her lips purse and he thinks that this is probably the least-impressed that anyone has ever been with him in his life. “I’m sorry,” she says, “But as I was _just telling_ these two, the patient is currently unconscious and cannot consent to visitors. Until he can, hospital policy is to only let in immediate family.”

“So…blood relatives and soulmates only?”

“Yes,” she sighs, wearily.

“What if his soulmate was here? Could _they_ consent to visitors?”

Gabriel, who had been distracted by the boy standing next to him, turns back to Dean with the interest of someone whose TV show just got interesting.

“Yes,” Billie repeats, dully. “But seeing as his records state that Mr. Novak has not met his soulmate at this time, that is hardly relevant.”

Dean glances at Gabriel and Anna, then back at the woman who looks like she hasn’t had nearly enough coffee to deal with all this shit.

“Maybe I should reintroduce myself,” he says to all three of them, rolling up his sleeve to display his mark. “My name is Dean Winchester and I’m Cas’s soulmate. We all good here?”

/////

Cas is still asleep, meaning Dean has to spend the next however many minutes answering Gabe’s extremely personal—and sometimes extremely odd—questions.

(“So, Deano, what’s your favorite way to do the dirty?”

“Whichever way distracts me enough that I forget my potential future brother-in-law asked me that question.”

“There is a _child_ in the room,” Anna hisses at both of them, but her brother just waves her comment away distractedly.)

(“If you’re served a sandwich with onion rings on the side, but you don’t like onion rings, what would you do with them?”

“But I do like onion rings,” Dean points out, only to see Gabe frown further. Dean rolls his eyes, “Would you like me to offer you some of my fake onion rings, Gabriel…?”

“That would be generous of you.”

“Well, too bad. You can get your own.”)

(“If you got stuck on a deserted island and could only pick three things from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory to have with you, what would you pick?”

“You mean, besides the magical glass elevator that could get my ass off the island?”)

(“Got any siblings?”

“A brother.”

“Is he as hot as you?”

“He’s my _brother._ ”

“So…hotter?”)

Gabriel’s in the middle of describing the time that “Cassie” wanted to go as an angel for Halloween and he’d taken the liberty of writing “Kick Me” across the wings—

(That’s messed up, man,” Dean informs him with a frown, unable to imagine _asking_ people to hurt Sammy.

“I knew the kid was gonna be fine. I just wanted to see him kick the ass of anyone who tried.”)

—when the heart rate monitor Cas is attached to speeds up. Dean turns, swiftly, only to see blue eyes sweeping the room like the lights on a search helicopter.

“Hey, Little Bro,” Gabriel murmurs, in a surprisingly calm tone of voice, drawing Cas’s gaze to him.

But at that moment Jack squirms out of Dean’s grip—catapulting himself to Cas’s bedside and throwing small arms around his neck. The various adults in the room all give shouts from deep in their throats, but Cas winces only slightly, and by the time his son’s head is nestled into his neck, his lips are giving a trembling smile.

“Jack,” his voice wobbles as he tries to pet his hair as much as possible while his hand is still attached to an IV. “What are you doing here?”

“Dean brought me!” the kid exclaims.

“And who’s Dean?” Cas directs the question at Jack, but it’s clear who he’s really speaking to.

Jack answers anyway, jerking his thumb back in Dean’s direction. “He’s the detective that was looking for you. He’s also my friend. He’s really good at playing Star Wars, but he doesn’t know as many cool things about wombats as you do.”

“I’m glad you know him so well. I wish I could say the same since he was apparently allowed to take you out of a place where I knew you were safe without my permission.” This time, even Jack can’t miss the bite in those words, though Cas doesn’t stop stroking his hair.

“Don’t be mad,” Jack tells his dad. “He thought that seeing me would make you happy. Doesn’t it?”

“It does,” Cas promises. “But I would have preferred if you didn’t have to see me like this,” he says, frowning at the half a dozen machines he’s connected to. At last, the dark-haired man faces Dean directly, “Are you actually going to explain yourself or are you going to continue to let an eight-year-old do it for you?”

“I, uh,” Dean stutters— _Jesus fuck, his soulmate is terrifying even lying in a hospital bed._ “It might have been a bit, um…presumptuous to bring Jack, you’re right. But I knew he’d been up for almost three days worrying about you and as someone whose Dad used to disappear a lot as a kid, I knew that telling him you were OK wouldn’t help nearly as much as seeing it and—” And now he’s comparing Cas to his deadbeat dad. This is going well.

Nervously, he runs his hands across the back of his neck.

That’s, of course, when he realizes his soulmark is still showing. Cas obviously notices it, too.

“Well, shit. I’ve really got to start watching this thing,” Dean mutters to himself. He looks at Jack, whose head is tilted to the side in curiosity.

“Shoot. I meant ‘shoot,’” Dean corrects himself, and he’s definitely going to die early with how many extra anxious heartbeats he’s used up in the last 72 hours.

“You’re--” Cas starts.

“Yeah…. Sorry if that’s…uh…not good news.”

Cas continues staring.

This is awkward. Beyond awkward. Awkward grew up, had a kid, and this is now Awkward’s ugly-as-fuck-grandson.

A loud clap snaps Dean out of his rapid downward spiral.

It is followed by full out applause. Dean and Cas turn as one towards the sound to see Gabe with a smile on his face—and Anna with her phone up, apparently recording the whole thing. “Boy is this moment going to be fun to play back at your wedding.”

/////

Cas does seem to take comfort from Jack’s presence even if he hasn’t exactly forgiven Dean for bringing him. He relaxes even more when the boy goes to sleep against his side and he can ask the questions he’s apparently been dying to. Dean tells him about his mom, about finding out about his connection to Cas, and about Brady (leaving aside anything about his dad, for now). His soulmate listens intensely, the way he imagines a general would listen to a report from the battlefield.

When Dean leaves several hours later, asking if it would be OK to call him sometime, Cas only says, “Fine,” before turning back to a conversation with his brother and sister. Dean tries not to feel like a kicked puppy, pointedly stopping himself from looking backward at the little family through the glass.

/////

Sleeping helps in a couple of ways. First off, he really, _really_ needed the rest.

And apparently whatever is tying him to Cas is still active so, when he dreams, it is of a hospital bed with itchy sheets. Of too-bright fluorescent lights and the smell of antiseptic. He watches Cas put on a brave face for his doctor and nurses even though he feels more vulnerable than he has in years—decades. Every shadow seems suspicious, every sound has his neck prickling with a false sense of danger.

Dean gets it. This is a guy who has had his guard up for his entire life—who, as a little kid, decided he was never going to put himself in a position to be hurt—and then look what the fuck happened.

So, of course, he’s going to be a bit wary of Dean right now. That doesn’t mean he won’t warm up to him with time—especially if Dean keeps on trying.

/////

Their first date is almost entirely a disaster. They go to a diner and barely talk around their food so that when the waitress comes and asks if they want dessert, Dean actually passes on _pie_. But because he goes to this diner frequently and Alex knows him pretty well, she places a hand on his forehead to make sure he isn’t sick while Cas looks on suspiciously. In the end, he accepts a slice to go and wishes he’d ordered a whole one.

It’s slightly easier in the car with the music playing. Cas is seemingly entranced with the night sky out the window, and, after parking, Dean takes a chance—pointing out some of the constellations he knows. Cas responds with a couple of stories about the characters from Greek mythology that the stars are named after.

When he’s done, the silence cocoons them, rather than presses down on them, giving Dean hope that the next time they give this a try, it might be better.

/////

It is not better.

When they go out again—for a movie this time—Cas is almost statue-like in his coldness.

But at least Dean’s not the only one he’s been shutting out. Gabe invited himself to live at Cas’s house for a few weeks to help him with his PT. And while Cas has made significant progress, Gabe now has several injuries of his own. (“The asshole _kicked me_ with his cast when I offered to help him get his pants on.”)

“Figures your soulmate would be just as stubborn as you,” Sam tells Dean when he goes to him to complain.

“That’s not--”

“Oh, come on, Dean, you know that if you went through something like that, you’d be trying to push everyone away too. He doesn’t _want_ to rely on anyone else right now. He wants his power back.”

Dean takes a long sip of his beer, wishing it were colder. “So, how do I make him feel better?”

“What would work with you?”

“Drinking booze and getting laid.”

Sam rubs his face with his hand, an obvious _Why do I put up with you?_ hiding behind his fingers. “How about you think for a moment and then try again.”

Dean likes it so much better when he can just shoot his problems.

/////

“Dean, what are we doing here?” Cas asks three days later. He’s obviously exasperated, hobbling along on his boot cast after pointedly not accepting the arm that Dean had offered him. Overhead, moonlight shines through the gaps of hundreds of rusted out cars piled into heaps around them.

“You’re going to like it. Trust me,” Dean pauses in the middle of a winding pathway through the rubble that he already cleared of any glass or debris. “Please trust me?” he asks, earnestly.

Cas looks at him for a moment, assessing, his dark hair almost blue in the shadows.

Dean holds his breath until, eventually, the other man nods, taking a few more uneven steps forward.

Eventually, they reach their destination—a dozen wooden cutouts of various monsters that Dean had arranged in a semi-circle after asking his uncle if he could use the scrapyard for his date. Next to them is a waterproof box containing several throwing knives and a couple of rifles.

“I thought we could do some target practice,” he murmurs, shrugging like it’s no big deal even though he really wants Cas to be pleased.

The only answer he receives is the chirping of crickets.

 _Oh, shit, did I mess up again?_ He wonders. And yet, when he finally brings his eyes up to Cas’s, they are practically glowing—and he thinks that might be a good thing.

Cas takes the knife that he hands him, checking its weight. “Third one from the right, between the eyes,” he predicts. Then, Dean blinks and the blade is right where Cas said it was going to be. _Man, that’s hot._

Cas, in fact, doesn’t miss with the knives all night. And yet, he is new enough to guns that Dean is allowed to reposition his shoulder for him—to correct his stance by nudging one of Cas’s feet with his own—to fit his chest against Cas’s back to make sure he is breathing in time with the trigger release.

Cas asks him how he learned to shoot, which leads to Dean telling him about his dad. In-between, Cas shares some anecdotes about his own childhood, but they don’t linger on the dark topics for long—somehow smoothly transitioning into a discussion of the most unrealistic knife and gun fights in movies.

Turns out Cas hasn’t seen a lot of films—dude hasn’t even seen _Lord of the Rings_ —and every five seconds, Dean is adding to the list of movies they have to watch together. Cas agrees but only if Dean goes to the botanical gardens with him. And then, suddenly, they’re talking about trips they’ve always wanted to take one day.

“Largest ball of twine,” Cas says, seriously—and Dean’s brain sputters.

“Why in the hell--”

“Because it, like most of the things humans do, seems completely pointless—but I wonder if seeing it for myself will help me understand the motivation better.”

“You want to plan a vacation around trying to prove to yourself that people aren’t idiots?”

“Yes.”

“Fine, but we’re stopping in Amish country afterward. They make the best baked goods.”

“They also do excellent woodworking. I’ve been looking for a new coffee table--” And so it goes.

By the time they’ve gone through all of their bullets and the army of werewolves, zombies, and vampires is thoroughly annihilated, they’re smiling and laughing together in a way that feels like the happy buzz of neon outside of a well-loved bar.

He should have known that Cas would make the first move.

Those long hands fist into his shirt and tug him closer—and when they kiss, it’s like being caught in a thunderstorm. The kind that makes you want to dance until you’re soaked and throw your head back and drink it all in.

It’s overwhelming in the best way, but he wants Cas to feel overwhelmed too—and so, after a minute, Dean licks his way into Cas’s mouth, satisfied when the smile Cas had been wearing turns into an ‘O’ of surprise.

Dean knows he’s good at this. He starts slow and steady, curling his tongue around Cas’s sinfully and swallowing the groan that gets him. Cas pushes one hand against the small of Dean’s back, forcing him to stumble forward a step even though there was barely any space between them already—and they don’t so much breathe as pass air back and forth between themselves as Dean grips the back of Cas’s hair and tugs, sharply.

“Nggnhh,” Cas moans, retreating at last, looking almost confused to find himself still in the middle of a junkyard. He touches his lip softly and then looks down at his hand as if he can see the impression of the kiss on it, which is too darn cute for Dean to resist, so he kisses him again. He’s softer this time—doing hardly more than capturing that bottom lip between his own and pulling gently.

“I hope this means,” he says, repeating the motion with Cas’s top lip. “That my soulmate has a little bit of a crush on me.”

“It’s possible,” Castiel admits, hands sliding into Dean’s jacket pockets like he’s using them as mittens.

“Good,” Dean nudges his nose against the side of Cas’s face, getting him to tilt his head enough that he can press a kiss just below his ear. “I was getting a little lonely in the not-even-friend zone.”

“I liked you from the moment I saw you,” Cas shudders and Dean rewards him for it by opening his mouth slightly against his skin. “But how was I supposed to trust that feeling? I’d just been through hell—so, of course, I was going to feel a bond with the person who saved me from perdition.”

“I’m pretty sure you saved yourself there, Cas. I was last-minute calvary at best.”

“And then it turns out you’re my _soulmate_ and—Anna will tell you how long I’ve waited to meet you. But I just kept asking myself _why?_ Why would God have us meet the way he did—when I was at my worst—my most angry, my most—my most broken? Was me getting hurt ‘meant to be’ too? And if He let things that happen—if he let Brady hurt so many undeserving people—what guarantee is there that the soulmates He puts together are actually good for each other and not just meant to provide Him with more sick entertainment?”

“Cas,” Dean says, pulling away to grip the other man by both shoulders. “Cas, breathe.”

Cas does, the sound almost whistling.

“Look, this whole thing scares the crap out of me, too,” Dean admits, looking into blue eyes that seem to have whole galaxies in them. “And I don’t have any big answers for you. But I can tell you this. You’re not broken. In fact, you’re way more put together than me on my best day.”

Cas begins to protest, but Dean just talks over him, “You’re badass-scary _and_ scary smart. And you already call me out my shit. But at the same time, I know you would put your ass on the line for me in a heartbeat—just like you would for anyone who hasn’t given you a reason to distrust them yet. Not to mention, you’re kinda nice to look at….” Dean gives him a slightly lecherous smile, but then almost instantly becomes more serious. “Anna and Gabe and Jack—their lives are all better for having you in it. So, soulmate or not, you can’t blame me for wanting to keep you around…if that’s something you want too.”

“I think…I think that would make me very happy,” Cas says, the galaxies in his eyes shining just a little brighter. And as Dean slides his hand down Cas’s arm, fingers brushing over a very familiar mark in the shape of an angel’s name, he already knows that he’ll look back at this moment as the one he started falling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some ending fluff for you all!
> 
> I realized when I was writing this that I left some strings with Brady loose, but every time I tried to add them, it just seemed to jar with the vibe of what I wanted this chapter to be, so, for those curious, Brady is currently in jail, having been denied bail for being a danger to society.
> 
> Dean has also found that Brady did originally go to Stanford to get revenge on Sam for John Winchester killing his father--but became weirdly obsessed with him upon meeting. As a result, in addition to continuing A. Zazael's habit of killing people with angel soulmarks, he's also killed several people that he thought had an interest in Sam (Jessica Moore, for example). This is not necessarily the same as people that Sam has had a relationship with. Dean has yet to tell Sam this.
> 
> Lastly, if you liked this work, consider checking out some of my others:  
> Slow-burn canon-compliant Destiel, where they actually use their words: [Truth Be Told](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21621739/chapters/51558172)  
> Sam POV as he adjusts to a newly-established Destiel: [New Normal](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23494333)  
> Much-fluffier-than-this-one Soulmate AU: [Meet Cute](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22384300/chapters/53480320)  
> 


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